I'd do morning sun then afternoon shade. Depending on how well it gets established, and the weather, it should be able to go 3 to 5 days between watering.

You can set up some inexpensive irrigation systems.Drip is fine.
Get a timmer and set it so it is watered while you are gone.FYI -I have to grow my S. guaranitica b&b in the same conditions it works quite well.
Art

hybridsage,

You said "I have to grow my S. guaranitica b&b in the same conditions".

Which condition were you referring to?

Thanks to both of you! :)

I grow it and have seen it grow in morning sun, afternoon sun and full sun.

Got it. I'll be picking up my B&B tonight from a nursery. Any tips before planting it directly? Do I harden it off first? It actually just arrived today at the nursery. I'm not sure where it came from though.

Ok, please let me know. Tnx.

I got the B&B half an hour ago. It's already got blooms. Looks like these are from cuttings. Anyways, I was just wondering why the leaves aren't the same as the B&B I saw in Wisconsin. The B&B I brought home has dark green leaves while the one I saw in Wisconsin had lighter green leaf. I was expecting that it had lighter green but it didn't. I'm a little disappointed since I really fell in love with the Guaranitica I saw. Will the one I bought change the color of the leaves just like below?

Here is the salvia that I took a pic last year.
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V1rtu0S1ty:
The lighter foliage is newer growth they will darken w/age.
Art

Thanks Art! Hopefully, I'll be able to propagate a lot this coming fall.

Here are the 2 I bought today. Oh btw, the tag says Location: FULL SUN. That's awesome! According to our friend wardda, he/she has grown it on 3 different locations.

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I've seen B&B at quite a few garden centers around here and all the plants have darker leaves.

Is it ok that I left the pot outside? The area where I left it gets sunlight from morning until 11am. I think they should be fine since the area where I bought it from was in the full sun.

Is it ok to prune them to make them bushier?

Thanks hybridsage & hawkeye_wx!

Neil

No need to prune just pinch back to make them bushier. Just pinch out the new small leaf growth in the center of stems and they will bush out.

In Europe there is a form with lime-green leaves all the time. It remains quite short, but spreads around a bit!

I prefer the look of the plant with the lime green foliage. Are we sure that it's a Salvia guaranitica, and not a mexicana? Robin, what is it called in the UK?

The width to length aspect ratio is correct for guaranitica, and the pigmentation is good for Black and Blue. Mexicanas usually have wider leaves, especially the giant forms like Tula and Ocampo.

One of my B&B almost died. Possible due to the strong cold wind. When I came home, the leaves were damaged. It's been pretty cold last week. Glad we're hitting 80s starting tomorrow.

hummersteve, the height of my B&B is like 8-10" now including the flower which is about 2-3 inch in length. So like what you said, I should only pinch the one with the new young leaves right?

I am in Lake Country Wisconsin and have been growing B&B. If you like the lime green foliage then do not give it much fertilizer. The nitrogen makes the leaves a dark green. Be careful though, the plants still need some nutrients.

Can I grow the black and blue in Phoenix?where can I get them? Or start from seed?

Not from seed. Many sages in culture don't set enough to make it worthwhile. Ripe seeds fall out of their calyxes easily, and pollination is often sparse. Also, you might get a hybrid, especially if selected forms are involved.

I hope you have access to both shade and moisture. The frequent 100+ degree days in Arizona can be really hard on sages. Many xeric sages from both the New World and Old can do pretty well, not so much the high altitude subtropicals. Guaraniticas are not high-altitude plants.

I'd recommend S. regla, S. melissodora, S. keerli, S. chamaedryoides amongst others.

I gave my increasingly lime-green black and blues a dose of miracle gro fertilizer and their leaves have re-darkened nicely.

I have so many B&B that I added a guaranitica 'Omaha Gold' for the variegated foliage. It was just planted out in late April, but is growing well -- no blooms yet.

Cameron

Cameron, what does the variegation look like on 'Omaha Gold'? Also, does it colonize as readily as the straight species? I got rid of most of my Salvia guaranticas because after a few years, they want to run roughshod on the garden. The only one that I have preserved is Salvia guarantica 'Brazil' because it's a clumper, not a runner.

'Omaha Gold' seems to be a variegated form of S. 'Costa Rican Blue', and like CRB, it is very late-flowering, non-invasive, and probably not a guaranitica!

My CRB and Omaha have been flowering for a couple of months and do not seem to have spread at all so far.

I just got my 'Omaha Gold' in April, so I can't say much at this point regarding hardiness, bloom, spreading, etc. I expected a bit more variegation, but the plant is still small and I planted it at the back of the border where it's difficult to notice the gold variegation from a distance.

My B&B haven't been a problem, but those in rich soil grow and bloom bigger and better than those out in my dry garden slopes. I had three in my cottage garden last year and moved one out to the dry slopes as the other two were large enough to provide the same impact as three the previous year. I can see having only one in that space next year. It in no way compares to how the salvia uliginosa spreads (but is easily controlled, IMHO).

So, Omaha Gold is NOT a guaranitica? There's some serious mislabeling out in the world--just do a web search on it!

Cameron

Found some seed at the nursery. When should i plant? I can proovide anthing from full sun to full shade.

I am pretty sure that the Costa Rican blue sage is a guaranitica, even though it is not native to that country. There is no native sage of that stature and color there.

It will take DNA work to suss the facts out.

There are huge forms of guaranitica growing in the northern, more sub-tropical part of its range. These could be tetraploids, and may not necessarily have either stolons or tubers. There is a lot of variability in this species.

I am hoping to get some seed from Argentina and germinate them for testing next year. Some of these appear to be quite promising, as well as different from the currently available forms.

A lot of variability in this species???? A masterpiece of understatement!!!! I now have about 10 different forms, some un-named, some have stolons or tubers, which can make them invasive, but some do not. BUT...I honestly believe that Costa Rican Blue and Omaha are hybrids....if not, why the exceptionally late flowering season, NO tubers, no seeds, could S. mexicana be involved somewhere? I know that guaranitica is from Brazil/Argentina and that mexicana is from Mexico...but there is now a hybrid of S. viscosa from Europe which has crossed with S. africana from S. Africa!

And who are 'Wendy's Wish' parents??? Suggested to be perhaps S. splendens and S. buchananii....interesting thought....but unlikely....wonder if involucrata has yet again been a bit naughty?

Better stop before I get carried away!

virtuosity: you have the best photo on the web of a Black & Blue. I thought I had a May Night and was looking up some info on it, only to find mine didn't look like theirs and now I know I have a Black & Blue.
Thanks to all for the info to deadhead etc. as they are young and spindley right now.
I love blue flowers. This will be more fun now that I know what it will do.
Do you think those are May Night in the background?

elisabbeth,

Sorry, I just saw this now. :( I'm updating my salvia black and blue after I planted it 3 months ago. My other one died :( huhuhu. She didn't do well in a pot.

About your question, I don't know. I'm sorry.

Took these pictures just few minutes ago. I wish it was more clumpy. I didn't do anything to her. I just planted and watered everytime I remember it. Seems to be drought/heat tolerant. It's in full sun.

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v1rtu0s1ty, your plants look healthy, but I am intrigued that the foliage is light green, almost chartreuse. Did you fertilize, or add humus to your soil, and is your soil a sandy loam?

My camera setting's saturation is high. But it's true that I can see chartreuse foliage with my naked eye and that's what I want like mentioned above.

I didn't put any fertilizer nor humus to the soil. About the soil, honestly I don't know how a sandy loam looks like. It's not clay but 1 ft below the topsoil is clay.

v1rtu0s1ty:
Mutations do happen you have something different.
A keeper regardless of why or how.I have had some
S. guarnitica throw flowers in whorls but cuttings
revert back to opposite so that was not a stable form.
Yours is looking stable.
Art

I really want to learn how to do the cuttings and grow them from inside. However, I don't know how to do it. Does someone have a tutorial link which I can follow?

Thanks Art! :)

I now have 2 B&B plants, and one has the chartreuse foliage (just like in the above photos), and one has the darker foliage. Go figure! I just now found seed... I had been under the impression that B&Bs were sterile?? I have some of the other guaraniticas, and haven't found seed yet.

I love this plant. Grew it for the first time this year and the hummers love it!

Does anyone know if it will come back in zone 5/6? I'm in western Massachusetts.

I used to live just northeast of Chicopee, in Granby, and guaraniticas are not hardy there. If you are in the city, you will benefit from the higher ambient temperatures, except when strong north to western winter winds will strip off the heat radiating from homes.

Someone in Minneapolis was able to keep Zone 7 plants in his Zone 5 beds by filling various size plastic bags with shredded leaves, and placing them around the perimeter of his flower beds and in the open spaces between plants after fall trimming. The bed was then covered with a sheet of plastic, completing the insulation and forming an in situ cold frame. The cover and the bags were removed sometime in late winter or early spring, when frost penetration of the soil eased off..

Yes, and the method is also good for plants we consider marginal in our zones. An example from my zone 6b/7a garden is involucrata. The species sometimes survives here but can't be relied on to do so. The plant that was covered has grown into a monster while only one of three others survived at all, and that one has struggled to reach a couple of feet and is still far from flowering. The method has endless possibilities, especially for those with little space to winter over plants indoors. I am wondering if it is possible to put potted plants into a deep trench and then cover with leaf bags or hay bales and a tarp. It seems that as long as the ground stay fairly dry plants will survive.

For sages that go completely dormant like guaraniticas, storage in a garage might also work, as long as the pots are not allowed to thoroughly dry or kept more than damp. Vigilance for the resumption of growth when the winter breaks may call for moving outside during warm spells.

Also, it might be good to give the pots a drench for root mealybugs. Lift the plants out of the pots to inspect for small white splotches, also to examine the population of stolons winding around the rim. The latter is where much of the spring growth will originate. These will be the most frost sensitive parts of the plant.

I know a few people who winter dormant guaraniticas in their garages. Mine isn't that tight so it gets too cold.

I was worried about all the Scarlet Spires last fall so I used the bag method on most of them. About mid March rthe cover was removed and the plants exploded into growth in April and were blooming well by early May. Several were also left uncovered and while they came back just fine it took them most of the summer to catch up. This makes me wonder about the more tender microphylla and greggii. It is something to check out. A side benefit was the stems on the S. Spires were pressed to the ground and rooted - a few easy way to produce robust new plants.

My garage freezes water bottles everytime during winter. Does that mean I cannot store my guaraniticas in the garage? How do I know they're dormant? Once they get knock down by first frost?

Is your garage exposed to northwest cold winds, and is there any insulation? A light freezing isn't a major problem - do the water bottles thaw out fairly quickly, or stay frozen for days?

Dormancy occurs in guaranitica when growth stops, and most of the leaves fall off stems, usually after the first freeze. This is a good time to prune them back.

I have four black and blue, three in the ground and one in a pot. This winter I will be trying a few overwintering methods to see what works best. Two of them will remain in the ground and get covered with the leaf bags and tarp. The other in-ground plant will be dug up and stored in a dark bag in my semi-heated basement, although I'm not sure 55-60F degrees will be low enough to keep it dormant. The potted b&b will get stored in my unattached, unheated garage. It gets very cold in there, but it should at least be a bit warmer than outside and I will also cover the pot with leaf bags. I also have a guaranitica 'blue ensign' that I definitely want back next year so I'll try the leaf bag and tarp method on it. Some greggiis and agastaches will get the bag/tarp treatment as well.

Last year I waited until quite late, about the beginning of December, before covering the plants. The really hard weather here doesn't begin until nearly Christmas. This year I'll add a few like Waverly, Indigo Spires and leucantha to the mix. If others try it a spring 2011 report would be nice. I will do almost anything to dodge the limitations of my climate and wintering space.

rich_dufresne,

The water freezes starting early January until mid February.

Can someone please tell how leaf bag and tarp is prepared? Do you cut the guaranitica first down to the ground?

You can after they freeze. The MN friend and I do it a little differently. Tall stems get cut down after they are killed by a freeze. A tarp is put over the plants and then bags of leaves are piled on the tarp. My friend puts the tarp over the leaf bags. As mentioned above I don't like to do it until I am certain the plants are dormant. Guaranitica is hardy to around zero so there isn't a big rush.

Are they dormant when all the leaves are brown?

Mine are out front along the walkway to the front door, so I wonder if there's a way to make the tarp and bags technique look good??

Mine is in front too.

Here is my plan. I'm prepared if I lose my b&b. I'll just buy again next year. For my existing b&b, I'll dig it once they get knocked off really hard by hard frost. I'll put it in a black trash bag then wrap the trash bag with a thick comforter :), but I'll make sure there's a breathing hole. I might put some saw dust so it retains the moisture inside. Then I'll just put it in my cold garage.

Just an fyi. My B&B laughed at 32F last night and this morning. They are tough! :)