mlevie:
From some of the post I understand that S.clevelandii
is short lived. Westele maybe able to help who
is in the same Zone as you. I don't know if your on
the coastal area or desert side of the mountains.Rich
is also very well versed so I will let them answer your Question.
Art

Yes, S. clevelandii are short lived... about 5 years in ideal conditions.

Thank you Art and westelle!

So a follow-up question....can anyone suggest sages that might last a little longer? We're near the coast but the site is very sage-friendly, I'm also growing s. apiana and artemisia tridentata down there and everybody seems happy.

In particular I love s. clevelandii for the fragrance, I can smell it fifty feet away!

The persons who can best answer these questions are:

Bert Wilson of Las Pilitas Nursery:
http://www.laspilitas.com/

Bart O'Brien of Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden:
http://www.rsabg.org/

and one of our posters, ccroulet

I would make note of the soil type, its depth, the amount of moisture it gets and can hold, the direction of the slope, and where prevailing winds come from.

This is a very interesting topic to me. I've propagated my own S. clevelandii from wild cuttings and seed, in addition to growing a couple of Winnies that I bought at Las Pilitas. I've also propagated S. apiana, S. mellifera and S. eremostachya, and, for the first two species, I have plants in the ground. But I haven't been doing it long enough to find out how long they last. Be aware that many plants sold in the trade as S. clevelandii are really hybrids with S. leucophylla. I mean plants other than "Allen Chickering" and "Pozo Blue," which are acknowledged hybrids. Most growers have never seen S. clevelandii in nature, and they don't know what it really looks like. "Winnifred Gilman" is authentic S. clevelandii, however.

I'm sure that the specimens I planted were grown by Annie's Annuals in Richmond, and on their web page they say that what they sell are Winnifred Gilman seedlings (see link).

They didn't all die this year, but the larger ones did. I suspect westelle is right that clevelandii is just not very long-lived.

I'm not restricting myself to native sages for this site--but it's very steep (maybe 45 degrees) and covered in poison oak, so I can't replace plants every couple of years and I can't coddle anything I plant. It'll get occasional water for the first summer, and then it's on its own.

Here's as much cultural information as I can give you, I'd love to hear your suggestions!

-we are about two miles from the coast just south of San Francisco. However, we are in a very sunny microclimate, we get very little fog during the day, and the slope faces south.

-precipitation is on the high end for the Bay Area, maybe 29 inches a year. The soil is very rocky and drainage is excellent, although I have found it to be somewhat variable from location to location on the slope.

-winds in the winter can be fierce. I've never measured them but they have been known to toss a wooden bench across our side yard.

Thank you for your help, and if I've forgotten any information you need, please let me know!

Here is a link that might be useful: Annie's Annuals link

That's a lot of rain for S. clevelandii, but they may get something close to that naturally in some of the highest parts of their range (Inaja, Palomar Divide). Your soil sounds OK. In nature, they grow in gravel or what amounts to highly-fractured rock. Winter winds as you've described them should not be an issue.

If annie's things grow good for you I can give you a list of all the Salvias that I got at Annie's that have died from our heat. But here are the ones I bought at Bay area and Santa Rosa area nurseries... they all struggle here so should do great for you.

Apiana from Cal-flora
Bucchannii from Cottage Gardens
Salvia fbuholwayiorskaohlei (ForsskalÂs Sage ) -- Berkley
Salvia greggii ÂTeresa -- Emerisa Nursery
Salvia iodantha -- Cal-flora
Salvia leucantha "Midnight" X S.elegans = ÂAnthony Parker -- Cal-flora
Salvia leucophylla  Figueroa -- Cal-flora
Salvia lyrata "Burgundy Bliss" -- Orchard
Salvia mexicana ÂLimelight -- Cottage Gardens
Salvia mexicana x hispanica ÂByron Flint -- Cal-flora
Salvia muelleri -- Cottage Gardens
Salvia sagittata *** "Ecuador"-- Boething Nursery
SALVIA pratensis "Rose Rapsody"
SALVIA nemorosa "Caradonna"
SALVIA nemorosa "May Night" (x sylvestris)
SALVIA x sylvestris "Blauhugel" (nemorosa)
SALVIA gesneraeflora "Tequila Sunrise"
SALVIA coccinea "Forest Fire"

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Our S. clevlandii is the big blue flowered plant on the left of the pic. It is 6-7 years old and perfectly healthy. It is big and I have to do some serious pruning on it after its flower bracts turn brown or it would be huge. I try to keep it no more than six feet across when in bloom and four feet when I prune it.

This is not particularly short lived to me and our conditions are certainly not ideal for any living thing with 112 degree weeks in the summer and 10 percent humidity with hair dryer winds but this salvia handles it with grace.

And you are right about the smell, it is heavenly.

Maria

Just from what I can see in the photo, your "Salvia clevelandii" is probably a hybrid. But, I agree, it's spectacular.

Well, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that I get too much rain and too little heat for s. clevelandii and that's why it kicked the bucket so soon...my consolation is that the apianas are blooming for the first time--that's just unreal.

westelle, thanks so much for your recommendations, are any of them particularly aromatic?

Matt

I don't really grow them for the smell, but do find clevelandii, apiana and one called Starlight Sage (S. apiana & S.mellifera) to be appealing.

ccroulet, which hybrid do you think it is? I saw something in the Manhattan Beach Botanical Garden in bloom, and it had amazingly dark blue huge flowers on it, like that one, but screens do lie. They thought it was a Winifred Gilman. It was definitely darker than my Clevelandii, now in bloom.

I don't know which it is. To be honest, "Allen Chickering" and "Pozo Blue" look the same to me. Maybe someone can show me the difference. There are other hybrids, of course, but these are common. "Pozo Blue" is a Las Pilitas specialty. "Pozo" is a small place on the map near Las Pilitas's Santa Margarita campus. "Winnifred Gilman," an authentic S. clevelandii, does have dark blue flowers. Some wild plants have the same deep color, and in fact I've grown some from cuttings, and they are in the ground now. The hybrids typically have lighter blue flowers (or is it purple; I'm color blind & can't tell) and they tend to have the multiple heads on one stem. They get that from their S. leucophylla ancestor. They also start flowering later than S. leucophylla but earlier than S. clevelandii. Real S. clevelandii more often have only one flowering head on a stem. I posted photos of real S. clevelandii as seen in nature on the "Salvia clevelandii in California" thread that I created here a year ago. Last year I found an interesting S. clevelandii x S. apiana hybrid near Escondido. This is a recognized natural hybrid called Salvia x palmeri. These two species bloom at the same time, so I'm not surprised that they have natural hybrids. I'm more surprised by S. mellifera x S. apiana hybrids, which are rather frequent where these two species occur together, since S. mellifera are usually finished flowering well before S. apiana start.

The "Starflower" hybrid was purchased from Cal-flora so I'm fairly certain it is what they say. Their stock and tagging have always been reliable.

"Starflower" or "Starlight" (your earlier post)? I don't question its ID. It's the alleged "Salvia clevelandii" sold by some nurseries that I doubt. For example, last year I met (several times) a San Diego Co. grower of native plants who was selling Clevelands that were clearly hybrids. He told me he got his original cutting from Tree of Life. But when I visited TofL, the plants they were calling "Salvia clevelandii" were authentic. They had straight species, "Winnifred Gilman" (also species) and hybrids -- "Allen Chickering" and "Aromas," IIRC. Interestingly, natural populations of S. clevelandii are close to the grower's nursery, one within a mile (but a much longer drive). He was unaware of them and had never seen the plant in nature.

I'm going to reverse field on something I said earlier. Looking at my Clevelands, I see that about half of the flowering stalks have one flowering head ("glomerule"), and the other half have two closely-spaced heads.

hi mohavemaria,

What salvia is the one with pink flowers?

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I think that plant in the center with the copious pink spikes might be a Penstemon, not a Salvia

In my experience, S. Clevelandii is more likely to live longer when pruned by about a third after its blooms are spent, but before the rains come.