Certainly has a visual resemblance - what about the smell?

Err, what does germander smell like ? :) I haven't crushed a leaf to check.

The leaves should have a sage-like scent. Different sages have different smells, so I assume they mean a pungent smell. The leaves and stems match Teucrium hircanicum perfectly. It's supposed to be evergreen, and it needs well drained soil.

Err so the smell test is going to be useless in differentiating from scarlet SAGE, which smells like sage :) Thanks. Since I have never smelled germander, this isn't gonna help me.

Really, I just wanted someone to look at the pics and take a 2nd judgement.

I will assume I'm planting Iranian Germander and try to find it a suitably dry place to wait out the winter.

Seems like a good call. I have 'Purple Tails' on my order list this year and have grown a couple of other germanders. I have been on the lookout for spiky contrasts to the frothy vagueness of much of my planting and t,hircanicum was on my radar this year. Good for my lean soil and dryish climate. Certainly a better candidate than the veronicatrums I foolishly bought.

You are correct....which is why I need to carefully consider planting sites. To make things difficult it seems to expect to be watered when dry vs being drought tolerant as well as requiring good drainage. Difficult.

Yep, wet soil and flooding is much more challenging than dryland gardening. Overwatering is probably the major cause of fails with my seedlings. Especially over winter when I am inclined to get a bit slapdash with the large numbers of small pots.

Haah, I try to get all the small pots in permanent locations for winter. It's spring and summer I'm littered with all the seed pots....

The leaves on your plant are longer and narrower than Salvia coccinea, and the upper leaf surface looks much more pubescent than the leaves of Salvia coccinea. I grow T. canadense and S. coccinea. I don't think S. coccinea has much of a scent, compared to S. officinalis, S. elegans, and S. gregii which are all aromatic, but totally different from each other. T. hircanicum would smell aromatic. S. coccinea leaves look rather smooth on the upper leaf surface, but are cilliate, and you can see in your photo where the sun is hitting the leaf that the upper surface is very pubescent like T. hircanicum should be.

Yeah, in autumn, I get as much as possible into the ground, no matter how tiny. However, all the fast germinators are already up - stuff like penstemons, ipomopsis, hedysarum, eryngiums, flax...all of which have to be kept alive over the next few months. Plus hardy annuals I need to keep an eye on. Course, there are shedloads of pots in the summer, which tend to suffer from drying out. It's always one thing or another...

Working with seeds has always been my primary propagation method but I am trying to move into cuttings and divisions ( my eldest is helping me to get a misting set-up on the bench).

A couple years ago I was putting seedlings in the shed to keep them Out of the rain. The Ipomopsis rubra is a winter annual here, in the states,prinarilly in Texas, and further south if the outside conditions are favorable here further north, the rosettes will overwinter and bloom the following summer, but mine were killed last winter and the rosettes this year are already wilted from the early low temps, so Im not too hopefull they will survive this winter. Ive tried the burpee Ipomopsis seeds a couple times. They are hybrid annuals that are supposed to bloom the same year as sown, but they only had a few flowers and the colors are lighter, in shades of creamy salmon, yellow and pink. I prefer many blooms, and the hot, red color. The Teucrium hircanicum has a nice, full flower spike that reminds me of Veronica. How does Salvia azurea do down there in Arkansas? I think my only azurea plant mysteriously expired this year. When I grew azurea years ago it wasn't near any taller plants, and it grew into a bushy form, whereas my most resent azurea was next to taller plants, and it grew more vertical. Misting does do wonders for rooting cuttings. I know someone using it on old, antique roses he finds in old cemetaries.

The best salvia azurea I ever saw was in Nebraska. However, yes, I have it and it does grow down here. I'm just a bit too wet for it to be very happy (not just me..Arkansas).

Wonder how the willow-leafed sage might do for you, Danny. s.reptans has the most intensely blue flowers with the most unsage-like leaves. Dunno why it has the epithet reptans either, as it is definitely upright and looks great with scabious ochraleuca , and stipa Ichu. Very late blooming though - around the same time as s.uliginosa.

Yep, I grow rose cuttings under enclosed cloches - semi-ripe roses will root in 6 weeks - less with a misting system. I am systematically changing all my roses to own root as many of them have started to sucker from the laxa rootstock - almost impossible to arrest the takeover. Most of mine are fairly close to the species and grow very well on their own roots/

I'd say within about three weeks, it would say 'Drowning...gurgle gurgle gurg....'