Very nice Becky!

How are your seedlings doing?

Penny

Penny:

Most of my baby B&Bs are pretty big. (The plants in the background are salvia elegans - I have a bumper crop of those, but 7 of them have been adopted by people at work.)

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I saw that you had quite a selection of seedlings. All of mine look the same. I have a few more small ones, but they don't look any different. I also have one seedling from 'Argentina Skies' that I will have to keep separate, because it looks just like the B&Bs. I am hoping for something unusual, actually.

Becky

Becky

Very nice , I wasnt expecting B&B to look quite that way , I guess I thought they would be bigger and flowers would be bigger. What are those red blooms in the back on the second photo? Im sorry to say the B&B seeds I tried indoors just didnt take, those just dont work for me. But I still have the winter sowed ones that may do something. Time will tell. Thanks for sharing the pics. Oh , yeah youre seedling are pretty good size.

Steve and Becky, This is a picture of one of my Black & Blue plants from last year.

Yes I do have more seedlings that I know what to do with right now and the B&B seedlings are definitely going to be a diverse group of plants. I can just tell I am going to have a lot of sports just by the difference in the leaves. I have only potted up a couple so far but need to get more potted up individually so they have room to spread out their roots. My original B&B sport (3rd. yr) is going to be at its prime this year and has its first inflorescence ready to bloom. Unfortunately I broke two of the larger stems the other day moving it outside so those are now in pots to root and so far are doing beautifully. That particular plant has pale lavender flowers.

Penny

Steve:

The larger B&B in the first picture is over 4 ft tall and 3 ft wide. The smaller one is about 2 ft tall. Both died back to the ground but are sending up shoots now. The reddish flower behind the second B&B is a gladiolus, does that help with the perspective? Penny's picture was taken closer to the plant than mine so it gives a better shot of the flowers.

Penny, do you keep yours in pots so you can take them inside? Mine are in the ground except for the seedlings. I may keep those in pots at least until I see what the blooms look like.

Becky

Becky
I used to keep them in pots but I was quickly running out of large enough pots to house them so as of 2005 I started putting them inground. The one in the picture is in the ground and was about 4ft. tall by nearly 3ft. wide. I had one planted on either side of my coral honeysuckle.

The year before last I had lost all of my B&B's but I always take cuttings in late summer just in case. This year it is still too soon to tell if these two will come back but between the rooted cuttings inside and all the seedlings I should have plenty. I actually have enough seedlings to fill one full bed but will probably pot up quite a few until they start to bloom. I suspect that some of the seedlings are a cross between my B&B and the Van Remsen form as I saw the hummers going back and forth between the two plants right up until the time they headed south in Oct. and they were grown on opposite sides of the yard. A cross between these two plants could account for the very lartge cotyledons that I have on some of the more recently sprouted seedlings.

Penny

Hey Becky and Penny

Both of your plants look very good. The only thing I could relate is I saw a photo on ebay that was taken on extreme closeup which made the flower look much bigger than it really was. My biggest seedling at present is from seeds Penny sent me from the " salvia microphylla x sal mueler" this surprised me. By the way I put up a video on hummingbird GW. Its not very good quality, but its all I had. Cant wait till I can post a pic of my seedlings , will wait till they get a little bigger. Thanks for sharing guys.

Steve are you sure I sent you seeds from salvia microphylla x sal mueler? That name is totally unfamiliar to me. I know it is nothing thzat I grew.

Penny

Penny--sorry must have been from someone else

Penny:

It sounds like you will have some really interesting plants. You should set up a photo gallery so all of us can admire them. My B&B was near salvia elegans and a couple of coccineas, but I did not see any variety in my seedlings. I had a lot of seeds that did not sprout. I still have seeds that I didn't plant, but I have way too many seeds planted right now.

I will have more varieties of salvia in the yard this year as well as more plants of all kinds, if everything continues to grow. I am hoping to cover up all of the "brown space" this year and thing work toward eliminating the rest of the grass . . . LOL

Becky

Becky I do have a gallery that I add to once they start blooming or for really unusual plants that I have good luck with. I save the more unusual pics and then discard the rest at the end of the season otherwise I have way too many pics to deal with. I probably should be more of a purest but since all the plants are open pollinated that would be very difficult to accomplish. I also enjoy seeing if I get a really different hybrid or sport and then seeing what kind of action that plant gets from my hummers. I always give a questionable plant one full grow and bloom season before deciding whether or not it is worth keeping. My Lavender guaranitica has taken 3 years to show its full potentional. The first year it was stubby and scanty blooms and no hummer use, the second year it flowered much better but was still small and scanty but the hummers did check it out. This year it is much fuller and more robust even though it is still a short plant and the inflorescences are very short with the flowers being just a couple of inches away from the leaves. Like Black and Blue it does develop tubers.

Penny

This B&B languished for two years. I mean it struggled to stay alive, but look what it's done this year!
Jim

Absolutely gorgeous, Jim! What a beautiful collection of plants! I can't wait for my B&B to bloom! :)

Brenda