Danita, I grew the peach pink salvia splendens from seed I got from seedhunt last year. They were gorgeous blooms, the plant grew 4 to 5 ft and it's going to be a perrenial plant for me. It bloomed twice before the frost got it.
Helena

Cold-framed Vanhouttei sages will just sit there in spring, then suddenly explode into growth. It will take the same amount of time for any of the forms to achieve blooming.

Nemerosas and pratensis forms are usually the first to bloom, followed by guaraniticas, greggiis, and microphyllas.

If you have a cold frame or a greenhouse, you can advance the vanhoutteis and other sages for earlier blooms. A well-managed cold frame or unheated greenhouse is actually better than a fully automated greenhouse. By well-managed, I include prevention of hard freezes and high temps inside the structures and modest watering but not let the plants dry out.

Thanks for the info Helena! I'll have to get some seed this fall. I'm thinking it's probably too late to bother this spring.

Thanks Rich! Like you said my Vanhouttei was perfectly happy in an unheated sun porch and is now putting on a lot of growth. Since you live in a similar climate, do you have any favorite Salvias that you wouldn't be without? I'm looking for something more unusual than what you can pick up at the local nursery.

Thanks Again,
Danita

These aren't all perennial, but they are native to the South (according to USDA).
Salvia azurea
Salvia pitcheri
Salvia chapmanii
Salvia coccinea
Salvia farinacea
Salvia hispanica (chia)
Salvia lyrata
Salvia micrantha
Salvia lancifolia
Salvia riparia
Salvia urticifolia
Salvia verbenaca

The link below is Robin's salvia gallery for other ideas and seeing what the above look like.
http://www.robinssalvias.com/gallery29.shtm

I would not be without Indigo Spires and s.chamaedryoides. I've also had success with S.farinacea, microphylla 'Hot Lips', 'La Trinidad Pink', transylvanica, reptans, 'Christine Yeo' and forskaohlei(sp?). Mexican bush sage and S.elegans do wonderful but don't always overwinter.

What are those potato looking things that form on the roots of salvia?

Those are tubers, foumd on guaranitica, meyeri, clinopodioides, and others. Thickened roots (rhizomes) are found on patens and other species. These are food storage organs that give plants breaking dormancy the ability to grow under adverse conditions, usually xeric (dry), to generate flower and seed producing organs. The latter will be needed once more advantageous weather (usually a transitory rainy, temperate season) breaks.

The soils the tubers and rhizomes grow in are usually hard to dig through, like caliche or in cracks between rocks, where they are not vulnerable to digging and burrowing herbivores. These starchy organs are exposed to predators in loose, humusy forest soils.