I am so jealous! My attempts to grow such beauties usually results in a puny seedling that bolts after growing just a few leaves. Perhaps I need to start them in the autumn and baby them in my cold frames.

Beautiful photos thanks for sharing.

Annette

I don't know when these germinate in nature, but I suspect it's no earlier than mid to late December. Judging from the places they occur, they can take some subfreezing nights and occasional snow. The locality shown is about 3500 ft. elevation.

Great pictures!

This is one of my favourite Salvias, although it is short lived. I sow my seeds, in England, early March, with the help of a smoke disc, but this is not always necessary. It is usually in flower at the start of June. I keep it in the glasshouse, as it does not like being rained and hailed on, which is a daily thing here currently. Final transplant into 6 inch pots, and it grows to about 18 inches. I don't treat this Salvia any differently to the others, and water it whenever necessary.

Rich, is it maybe too humid where you are?

A tip for Salvia enthusiasts living in so. Calif.: these S. carduacea are (or were last week, anyway) right on Hwy 371, about 1.5 road miles west of the Cahuilla Casino, near Anza, Riverside Co. GPS coordinates are 33.53581 N, 116.76151 W, elev. 3526 ft.

Robin and Rich: I haven't tried to grow these; maybe next season. One of my goals this spring was to see S. carduacea in nature, and I feared maybe I'd already missed them. You can imagine my utter delight at finding these in plain view on my route to and from the S. eremostachya population shown in an earlier thread.

The environment at this locality is usually very dry, but not desert. Mean annual precip is probably around 11 inches (an educated guess), falling mostly from December through March (but none in March or April this year). Some of it falls as snow, but other localities where this species is reported rarely see snow. Year-to-year precip is highly variable. Relative humidities of 20% or less are frequent, as are high winds. Days are mostly sunny. Winter temps regularly drop into the 20s F at night, sometimes into the teens. Winter days are usually 50s-60s F. I'm pointing this out because, cool though the winter weather may be, that's when these things must be germinating and growing. Even by March, lows are still usually in the 30s F. I regularly do astronomy stuff from a location near these plants, so I have some experience with the climate. The soil here is sandy, with excellent drainage. With all that info, give it another try!

Based on one of your photos cattle seem to like them so I expect deer might also. I wonder if they just might grow in dune-like conditions in the east. It is great that you were able to see them in all their glory and thanks for sharing the pictures.

For substrate I'd be tempted to try gravel or coarse sand, maybe mixed with some compost. However, I've been growing S. apiana, mellifera and clevelandii in Sunshine Mix #1 (a peat-lite mix available from places that sell to commercial growers), and they do very well. The stuff drains quickly, and I suspect that that's the key. I invite Rich to chime in on this.

There are more S. carduacea on the other side of that fence. While I didn't see any cattle, nor did I see any cattle droppings, it's certainly possible there are some there. I saw no sign of deer or droppings, but they (mule deer) are common in some areas in the region. They'd be in peril from high-speed traffic along the road. Fortunately, I've never seen a dead one there.

CC - what a gorgeous find! I can see the bumpersticker now - "Caution - I brake for salvia."

Finally! The flowers. Same location as before, but taken 8 May 2008. Although some plants are starting to die, and the flower heads of some are drying (this is an annual), it appeared to me that the total population of flowering plants was much greater and more widespread than two weeks ago.

WOW! Great photos. Thanks for sharing.

Here's a "new" population of S. carduacea that I discovered near my home in Temecula, CA. 33.52172 N, 117.07703 W, elev. 1328 +- 23 ft. (about 400 m). The grasses are all non-native invasives.

Another local population. Temecula, Riverside Co., Calif. 33.50115 N, 117.14569 W, elev. 1069 +- 36 ft (321 m +- 11 m). This is along Ynez Rd., just south of the Temecula Duck Pond.

Wow....and I was just there, heading from Trader Joe's to WM. Too busy watching traffic to look over and see it, I suppose.....

I forgot to put a date on my photo: May 13, 2010.

Wow, stunning pix ccroulet! I just picked up some seed from Theodore Payne last weekend and I'm gonna work on my own "field" of carduacea...which may be in the form of a giant pot. Any knowledge of this annual being chomped by gophers in your own yard?

salviakeeper: Pocket gophers are common in Calif. (they should really qualify as the "state mammal"), and I think there are some on the nearby "championship" golf course. Fortunately not in my yard. I planted my S. carduacea seeds in something I considered to be a large pot, but it wasn't large enough. My plants grew and flowered, but they were greatly stunted compared to plants in nature. I haven't seen any sign they're going to give me seeds, either. I never saw an insect or hummingbird visit them. You can't see it in my picture of the Ynez Rd. plants, but there was a bumblebee working the flowers just in front of me.

If you want to go the pot route, I'd suggest either a very, very, large pot or one plant per slightly smaller pot. I didn't sow mine until Jan., which was really too late. If I do it again, I'll sow in Oct or Nov. They'll probably do nothing for a month, but in nature they're subjected to frost and even snow in some places (the Anza plants get snow), and I suspect it's equivalent to cold stratification. I used a mixture of 2 parts Sunshine Mix No. 1 and 1 part sand. Give them as much sun as possible.

Thanks ccroulet. I agree on the state mammal status. If there were a contest for greatest gopher population per square foot, I might come close to winning.
I think that I will go the potted route to establish. I have some concrete pots 2'x2' where i have a successful population of s. columbariae and I may be wise to repeat with the thistles. I think I'll sow this fall and wait for a natural cycle of germination. I may put the seeds into the freezer for a time to "cold stratify" them. Thanks for the info!