Yes, microphylla like Wild Watermelon make great informal hedges and so does greggii. For the hummingbird gardener another good hedging plant (outside the subject of this forum) is Cuphea David Verity. The nice thing about all of these is that they are so easy to grow from cuttings and don't take long to produce results for the gardener.

Hey wardda, thanks for your comments. I will definitely plan on doing that then. I have cuphea caribbean sunset which does not grow quite as tall. Maybe I should try them in front of the Wild Watermelon.

That sounds good.

I would imagine that Salvia regla would make a good hedge if you are in an are that it grows. It also does not mind growing in the part shade if it gets a bit of sun here and there.

I just got a Salvia regla 2 months ago and I planted it by a fence so it will not get the afternoon sun. It is only about 1.5' tall now. I understand that it will grow to 5' or more? I want something that does not grow past 4' since I am going to use it as a low hedge. It will be less pruning in the long run. I will probably need 10 plants or more. I am rooting some cuttings and also started some seeds of Salvia Wild Watermelon. Hopefully, I will have starter plants soon.

@kal2002: I love S. regla! I think you should expect it to get 7 or 8 feet tall, though. It also gets trunky, spindly and brittle...maybe not so great for a hedge by itself...

As for big hedges, I threw a 'Tequila' baby in the back corner. We got privacy, as well as hummers, after 2 years.

Just want to make sure that Salvia microphylla Wild Watermelon's seeds will bloom true since I am rooting cuttings and starting seeds. Does anyone know?

Hi jonopp, I have never heard of salvia 'Tequila'. I can use one of them eventually. There is a spot in my yard that I can grow a tall salvia next to a photinia. I tried the grape salvia but it died last winter. Does salvia 'Tequila' die back in the winter?

The cuttings certainly will come true to the parent, but the plants from seed probably won't. This is especially true if you grow other microphylla or greggii.

Salvia Maraschino Cherry is planted next to it so maybe the plants from seeds will produce different colors of flowers. That should be interesting. Thanks.

Salvia microphylla `Wild Watermelon' was a selection by me of the collection that Don Mahoney made on Cerro Potosi just below the alpine zone, so it is relatively hardy and early blooming.

Other selections from that seed collection are in the trade, especially in California. These have smaller flowers.

Therefore, I'd suspect that seedlings of Wild Watermelon probably won't come true in this regard.

If a plant has a varietal name, don't expect its seedlings to come true, especially if it is already a hybrid. F2 seedlings tend to range from one parent to the other.

And please do not distribute the seedling under the original name. The Agastaches are already a mess because of this, and probably also many Salvia greggiis. As I like to repeat, having a solidly referenced provenance attached to a plant name adds to its value.

Hi Rich. Don't worry. If I choose to grow the plants from seeds, they will have no names. Sort of like the salvia's that are sold in hardware stores. Thanks.

To be fair it all can be really confusing. Every year out at the park in the median salvia row things it gets murkier and murkier. An example there is the microphylla Neurepia row which was originally a dozen plants. There are still about a dozen plants in that section but nearly half of them have dark calyxes and even those that don't I am uncertain about. It is no longer possible for me to pass along any plant in that section with any confidence of its provenence, so I don't. There is a plant blooming nicely that is very like greggi Coral, but is it? Yellow cultivars there have been attempted several times and all have failed to winter over more than one year. Did this one survive when all the others failed? The only thing I can think to do is buy another Coral and put it right next to this plant. Another peril of park planting is keeping tags in place, and it is a battle that is pretty much always lost. Greggii and microphylla produce a lot of very similar seedlings and in a lot of cases it takes an observer more perceptive than me to detect the differences. The last thing I would want to do is name something that is really someone elses discovery. That would be outright theft from my point of view.

Depending on your color choices and where you live, I think salvia chamaedryoides 'Marine Blue' would make a wonderful hedge. I love the blue. I don't think I could bring myself to pull out a cistus hedge though. Have they gotten too tall?