i sowed about 600 seeds of various species(50ish) that i am still waiting to see if anything new pops up. Just some stuff i had sitting around. This was back in DEC 2010. Im doing it with the UCR BG. I get to keep the ones i want and i donate all the others to them to plant or sell. Ill let you know what comes up. Im trying to get them to compete with the northern gardens..... I have to cold stratify some of them. Next time im using GA3.

Brent

I'll be posting a PDF of my seeds germinated soon to those interested. Some have only one or two poking their head up, so it will be a while before I will be propagating from those.

I have a couple of seedlings coming along . We will see!
Art

I have a hundred plus microphylla/greggii types sitting in cells waiting for May planting. Mostly they were harvested from hardy types and they will receive rough treatment over the next year. I have no more exotic types. The seedling from Silk's Dream, possibly a cross with buchanannii, turned out to have nice foliage and stems but a washed out pinkish white flower and was very frost tender. It gets one more year just for the heck of it - not really a keeper.

Here is one of my first selections. Bicolor maroon and light orange. The pictures doesnt really do it much justice. S. greggii x jamensis that came from salmon seed.

Brent

Here is a link that might be useful: first new flower

Brent:

The folks at Suncrest Nurseries (ginny Hunt and M. Nevin Smith) in Watsonville are doing a lot of bicolor microphyllas (probably dominating over the greggii genes)

Tony Avent at Plant Delights has been won over by Dancing Dolls and Shell Dancer from Suncrest.

Brent:
That would be great to see the real colors!
Art

The various yellow flavors don't survive to well here in Southern New Jersey. I keep hoping a stray cross with something hardier will be more durable, so far it hasn't happened. There have been a few which last 2 years but no longer.

Tony isn't the only one to be won over, after last summer I am a big fan of Dancing Dolls. Whether it is hardy here is another question, but worth a try. One thing is sure, it is good enough to grow as an annual.

At the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden sale 10 days ago, someone was selling Mesa Scarlet as an annual. From its appearance, I'd say it should be a lot hardier.

I'm trying to find out if Terra Nova is responsible for their development.

a friend of mine has two hybrids of discolor with geggii x jamensis. Came from greggii x jamensis seed that was hand pollinated with discolor. white stems on the seedlings! pictures to come soon.

Brent

I have about 40 seedlings that either volunteered or sprouted in seedbeds and I'm patiently awaiting them to demonstrate more characteristics of the parents. I have a grouping of Calfornia native species, mostly from the desert zone and potentially some cool hybrids as many of the plants were in bloom simultaneously last year. (Salvia apiana w/purple polka dotted flowers, pachyphylla, dorrii X, pachyphylla x dorrii, eremostachya, Gayle Nielson, Carl Nielson, mohavensis) There may be more dna in the mix becuase i've read that the pollenation sphere of a plant is 3 miles...so anything is possible. It's like watching the water come to boil!

I believe Syngenta is the proud "owner" of the Mesa Series. I doubt Dan at Terra Nova fools with such non-variegated things (smile). They (Terra Nova)do have a nice variegated officinalis, but for the price I passed.

A discolor hybrid!!! Awesome! Perhaps we are at the start of a renaissance period for Salivas.

Rummy, but just from work,

Kermit

Kermit & Brent:
Lets hope we are entering era with plant material coming out
of South America plus new Salvia forms still being discovered
in the wild. I know that there is more in Mexico too!
With 750 - 900 species out there I would say the odds are pretty good that Salvias will be in horticulture for a long time!
Art