I've received that message here too, even though there was a reply before mine. Somewhat annoying.

OK, I really do think that is what this is. I have a slope that could use this sort of cover plant. The clevelandii was not too happy there... probably not enough sun. Does your S. chionopeplica tend to attract bees, or hummers?

I wonder if it's edible? The leaves really do look good enough to eat. :)

Here you have a couple of images of S chionopeplica. My specimens are all compact and upright, lightly pebbly blue gray leaves covered with "peach fuzz". In the one photo of the entire plant, you can see some darker green leaves on the left which are from a neighboring S clevelandii Winifred Gilman. Wish my images were clearer, tis the season for overexposed pix. These plants get no supplemental H2O. Maybe they get leggy and are darker green with different conditions.
BTW if you have the room there is an amazing chiono x apiana cross out there in the industry that is pretty spectacular, apparently a naturally occuring hybrid in Baja.

Here is a link that might be useful: S chionopeplica

keeper, is the chionopeplica a new planting? Has it been pruned back? It is more compact than mine. Mine is in its second-third year in the ground, full sun, gets no supplemental water.
voodoo, salvia 'Bee's Bliss'(leucophylla x clevelandii or sonomensis) is good for slopes. Roots as it spreads helping to hold the slope and also making more new plants available for you to use elsewhere.

wcgypsy, this plant is from a seedling sprouted in fall 2008, the most vigorous of a few. It's never been pruned. It was the cleanest shot I have for plant structure. I've added a few pix of the leaves in the above photobucket link and one of the old mother plant which is sandwiched between a couple of arctostaphylos but you can see it has the overall grey tone to the leaves and it stands straight up. Off to the left of this image is a chance seedling and it's probably a hybrid, hasn't flowered yet and has deeper green leaves yet the same erect form. (sorry for tmi-ing)My source was RSABG.org

This definitely looks like what I saw, except that the stems are not as dark on the cuttings that I took; mine show only a tinge of that burgundy. I will have to go back and get a better look... it's possible that the older stems are darker (I took new growth). I also took cuttings from the population that was in nearly full shade, so that could explain the more lax growth?

The foliage and flowers definitely look the same. Thanks for the photos! Do you happen to know if this roots very easily?

I do have a Bee's Bliss plant; it's still fairly small. This slope gets sun nearly all day, and is a horrible clay which I don't feel like amending properly. So my thinking is that CA natives is the way to go...

keeper, you are quite right and I am quite wrong. I went out to take another look at my chionopeplica and while my pic was indeed a chionopeplica flower, the foliage was not. The foliage belongs to another native, not yet in flower, which is a sprawler and has enveloped the chionopeplica. It will be awhile before I know which it is since it's lost it's tag....sigh. The chionopeplica is upright, though mine is looking a bit yellowed right now. Everything else around it is doing well though, so.....

wcgypsy, the flower from your photo does look like chionopeplica with those bright yellow anthers. That dark green salvia looks like it could be a mellifera, maybe 'repens' that is a leggy crawler...? Some of my salvias have turned yellow too and I think that they got mildew from the large amount of rain that we've had this season.

voodoo, Never tried to root this species. I'll be interested to hear your results. There are a number of salvias growing in clay here and they do fine, Bee's Bliss is one of them. Seems that they like to be mulched heavily and watered less frequently than those in well draining earth. If you have lots of room on your slope, you might want to try S leucophylla and 'amethyst bluff' gets huge and has particularly deep colored flowers.

No, I have tons of repens...that's not repens. I'd worried about the 'goodly' amount of rain we've gotten, but the chionopeplica seems to be the only one yellowed and the natives are pretty much all located in the same area.
voodoo, repens is also good for banks and does reseed a lot to help fill the bank should it be a large area you're talking about. I like natives on slopes, also cistus mixtures.