I have been growing a Salvia penstemonides for years wondering why I got no seedling..... WELL, I HAVE BEEN WEEDING THEM OUT! The seedlings look an awful lot like Correopsis lanciolata which seeds out a lot around the area that this salvia is growing in I wanted mor of the salvia and less of the coreopsis. I decided that this coreopsis was not wanted here so I have been weeding it out FOR YEARS..

I grew som S. Penstemonoides plants from seed and discovered that the seedlings in this area were salvias also and I have been mistakenly weeding them out FOR YEARS.. I still have 8 unweeded S. Penstemonoides so now I know. the plants come out looking very similar and then change in different directions so one is better served to wait sometimes.

Here is the story. First pic is of the seedlings of Salvia penstemonoides that germinated last summer. Notice the red on the stem edges.

Here is one out of a some similar seedlings that made me go OHHHHH, it has red and looks like what I have in a pot. SO I thought all of them in the patch were seedlings a couple of days.

I went around an collected some seeds that showed the differences as they got bigger and their similarities when they were small The two on the right are Salvia penstemonoides from a younger and a slightly older rosetted. You can see a line of red on the older leaf. The two on the right is the coreopsis . the young leaf is extremely similar in shape to the salvia , but as it ages , it develops a "cross" leaf.

With my new knowledge, Two days ago, I thought this grouping below was all salvia but now that I go back there, I see that the two on the left are coreopsis, no red and small cross leaf developing. I need to move these two to a good spot for them. 2 days ago, they looked the same to my eyes. Live and learn. The adult plants are very different. So the moral of the story is procrastination, can sometimes be a good thing.