Annette

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?

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!

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.

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.