Joseph

I've been advised that cuttings strike according to the seasons. I know someone who is experimenting with bottom heating and she says she's been taking cuttings out of season and rooting them successfully using this method. I know someone else who's taken many cuttings of Hot Lips and is really happy with how easy they root but I've yet to be successful! What strikes, what doesn't, when and how remains a mystery to me.
Cait

Now I'll add a question. I had very mixed success with rooting some of my bush sages. Rasperry Delight seems to take ok, but Raspberry Royal has been almost a total failure. Has anyone noticed that cuttings from fatter stems seem to take quicker and better? Many of my cuttings were from wind broken stems from which I could take up to four or five cuttings. The lower fatter stems seemed to root quite well on the "Delight", while the thinner upper parts of the stems rooted slowly if they rooted at all. Perhaps it is not worth the trouble to root those thin cuttings?

The above being said, I took cuttings of all sizes from San Carlos Festival and Wild Watermelon over the weekend. I'm hoping for the best since I'll need those rooted plants next year.

wardw, I've never been able to figure out which part of the stem does best, so I try them all! I suspect it's more the time of the year that matters as Westelle pointed out.

I've also had success when rooting cuttings and leaving them in the house. I've only just started experimenting with taking cuttings in winter - it's winter for me now - and the winter-flowering salvias seem to strike ok. But I have more winter flowering species to experiment with while last year I only had the van houttii. The greggii cuttings I've taken seem to strike better when taken in spring and early summer. The same with buchananii.
As you said, I, too, have never been able to figure out which part of the stem does best when it comes to cuttings. And for me that's part of the fun - to just 'do it' and see what happens!
Cait

Pelargoniums also root very easily in the same way.

Jen

1. We take about a 3/4" cut from the tip. You want to get new growth that's healthy looking.
2. Strip off all but 2 or 3 sets of leaves. Take off all flowers. You want the plant to produce roots, not try to flower.
3. We don't usually use rooting hormone, but we do use heat mats.
4. We also use a seed/cutting starter mix. It's finer than regular potting soil.
5. They don't need to be covered, but do mist them a couple of times a day.

We have really good results this way. The only real stinker this year was Chiapensis. Maybe it's because the stems are thinner.

Thanks to everyone for their advice.

also stuck a Salvia Leucantha cutting that was about 6 inches long and stuck it in a full sun area. The thing is about a foot now.

Then I filled-up the big communal pots with fresh soil, striped the leaves off the prunings and stuck those in the ground too. We'll see how well they all take in the shade at 110º.

Boy, I guess this salvia is delicate!! It's my first time growing it. I put it in a spot that is bright shade half the day, sunny the rest.

Yeah, the lazy water method has only worked for rooting s. greggii and microphylla. Those break all the time, presumably due to same ball. Although, the way my resident hummingbirds go after s. blepharophylla, I wouldn't be surprised if they break a few stems as well!

I hope you have at least one cutting with supple (not stiff or limp) stem in the rooting medium. If your plant was growing rapidly, you will have a new plant in a few weeks.

Do leaf cuttings of salvias ever take? I decided to try a few with this iodantha (but figuring they won't root). I don't exactly know what I'm doing there... I have a green thumb, but am not very scientific about it.

One of the reasons I like salvias so much is that they are so easy to propagate - they are a doddle from seed as well. The challenge comes in trying to keep the blighters alive through a long, dark, wet and chilly N Wales winter!

If you have a difficult to root sage, grow it in a mix with worm castings. This soil amendment is to plants what spinach is to Popeye. You can make a worm-casting rich compost by using coffee grounds with freshly fallen deciduous leaves. Catch them before the leaves have the residual sugars washed out of them to give the leaf molds a head start. Maple leaves are terrific for this.

Salvia blepharophylla, especially Dulces Nombres, can be very resistant to rooting. This hard to find form does have its uses, and I am trying to get it reintroduced. It will get the worm casting treatment.

Don't forget that the optimal rooting treatment involves your weather conditions. This related to the vigor of the plants.

The S. microphylla UCB Pink did not fare as well as the other salvias; large woody branches broke off. So I guess it's cuttings time... should I only take the new growth at the tips, or try to root the woody stems as well?

Leucantha was tough; one bush even survived a strawberry guava tree falling on it. S. elegans also held up remarkably well. It was the saddest thing to see my hummingbirds feeding from it in the torrential rains and wind!

I've got broken S. coccinea and blepharophylla as well... all the other stuff (e.g. felled trees, flooding) is for the Calif. forum, I guess. :)

thanks

I use a slightly unconventional method. I put the cuttings in a heated propagator inside a light box. I then flood the floor of the propagator with water, having put the pots on pieces of wood to keep their base above the water line. So the cuttings have light and bottom heat with a temperature of about 80F. As the inside of the propagator has 100% humidity, the cuttings cannot lose any moisture so I leave as many as 20 leaves on the cutting material. This way I can get well rooted cuttings in 7 days, but I usually leave them for 10 to 14 days. There is usually no sign of roots for 4 or 5 days or more, but once they start to grow it only takes a very short time to get well rooted specimens. I often take the pots out and pull them apart to see the progress of the roots, and then repot them and put them back. They don't seem to mind - and its all in the interest of science!

The biggest problem I had last year was with the tall red splendens. The parent plant was in flower when I took the cuttings. I cut off all the flower buds that I could see, but the buds kept growing back faster than I could cut them off. So my pot of 10 day old cuttings was in full flower, and has continued to be in full flower to this day nearly 12 months later.

I know this could be a recipe for rot, but so far I have never had it. I have done splendens, 'Mystic Spires', leucantha and involucrata, and they all do equally well.

I will have a try with other Salvia species.

What is to stop you putting cuttings in a sealed, flat, damp polythene bag, with no soil? You could actually see the roots growing. You might have to breathe into the bag daily to provide carbon dioxide.

I germinated seeds that way, a couple of years ago. When they germinated I removed them, but I purposely left one seed in this sealed bag. With no nutrient other than from the seed itself, it grew several sets of leaves and lived for about three months - which surprised me.

What is involucrata x pulchella? As far as I know, 2 or 3 Salvias which were thought to be pulchella were mis-named. The species from Chiapas has now been given the name of S. univerticillata. Involucrata can hybridise with several other species, in particular karwinskii and microphylla. Do you have a photo?

On the subject of salvia cuttings, how should I deal with them if I plan to go away for a few days? I tend to water them daily. Should I just leave the 4" pots in tubs of water?

One (S. Anthony Parker, I believe) rooted and is already starting to flower in under a month -- amazing.