I just had the same thing happen to me with a new plant (salvia iodantha) from Annnie's. There are a lot of people looking for s. dombeyi... wanna trade cuttings? ;-) I presume you got that at Strybing (I saw your pics on the passiflora thread) -- I really need to go to those sales again, but I no longer live in SF!

Check the cuttings thread on this salvia forum (currently bumped); Rich has kindly answered my similar dilemma. My piece was longer; I cut it in two and made sure the lowest nodes were under the soil. I probably could make more... this just happened yesterday evening. I recently had luck getting a tip cutting of salvia gesneriflora "Tequila" to root.

Surely you can go to the Strybing sales if you are still in the Bay Area? I'm in the South Bay, so it takes me nearly an hour. Anyway, these plants tend to go really quickly. After I picked up that plant and an amazing Bomarea and put them in my box, a friend watching my plants said that several people tried to grab them. They also had some at the last sale.

The reason I didn't post on the other thread is that I've never rooted a Salvia before, and I gather it's a bit of a different plant than most. I sounds like I may be able to barely stretch two cuttings out of it by positioning the new growth at the first node from the bottom just above the medium, and the node below.

I'll need one plant just in case for the winter, but after that I have no plans for one. Keep in touch and we'll see what happens.

Hi, I'm in the East Bay now, and had been living in Germany before that. It's tough to get out to SF when you have a hyperactive little son. ;) I would definitely have to go alone! I'll check when the next sale will happen.

I hear ya on people trying to take your plants... that has happened to me at nurseries, from my cart! Sheesh.

If it were me, looking at that pic, I'd make it only one cutting, to be safe. Especially with that being such a commercially hard to find salvia (though I read on cloudforestcafe where you can find it in GGPark and get cuttings, *wink*).

Tip cuttings are not going to work for most sages. You need firm but supple green stems for optimal rooting. Flowering tips should be taken off, since they rob strength from the cutting trying to form roots.

After 7 days, the two cuttings derived from the broken piece have started to root. The one on the right has bumps suggesting roots will come in a day or two.

The fact that the cutting on the left is essentially a single node cutting, yet rooted so quickly, suggests to me that I might be able to generate a lot of cuttings easily. I'm going to be pretty agresssive and find the minimum size piece that I can root. However the "problem" at the moment is that essentially all the growing tips have buds. Some sort of green caterpillar wants to eliminate those, though...

The plant itself is starting to open flowers:

It turns out the plant is also growing at a pretty good pace. Here are photos of when I got it and today, just a week later.

If the growth isn't obvious, compare the height and the leaves near the ends of the branches in the upper left and lower left.

So of course my question now is given the fact that the plant is so easy to propagate and such a strong grower, why is it so hard to find and often expensive if one manages to locate one?

It looks like I need to repot this ASAP. I take it it will freeze over the winter if it's in the ground? Our lowest temp is generally in the upper 20s in a given winter. Most nights it gets down to about 40.

It should be OK for those nights it goes down to 40 degrees. I found that dombeyi forms two kinds of roots. One is the fine root hairs, or feeders. The second are some trunk-like roots, just over 1 mm wide. My recent experience is that those cuttings that don't have these taproots die off fairly quickly. It looks like it wants to send these roots deep.

Salvia dombeyi looks like a plant that will send surface feeder roots for gathering transitory rain, and a deeper set of roots for water and nutrients. I think it should be set in a deep pot, with the upper third or so filled with a really loose soil, like a scree mix as used by rock gardeners.

Rich,

This is interesting. I just checked out the Tropicos entry for S. dombeyi. I was surprised to see that most of the specimens came from 3000-3500 m elevation. This is high enough that they should experience frequent frost. The two in Peru that I checked were roughly 20 miles from Cusco. Cusco is also at this altitude, and a check of its climate data shows that the average low in July is 32 F. Moreover, it has a marked dry season: May-August only get about 1 inch of rain. This might explain the roots that you describe, assuming the areas where S. dombeyi live also experience a winter dry period.

So perhaps any sensitivity to mild frost would be due to cold + wet instead of just the cold. Maybe the soil mix you suggest would help minimize the problem. I already grow all my highland tropicals in a loose mix--roughly half perlite/pumice, half garden soil, maybe a little peat. I also keep them constantly moist. Perhaps I want to cut back on the water in the winter a bit for S. dombeyi, particularly around those cool nights.

Be careful! Keep some at least of your cuttings somewhere warm - I lost it in my greenhouse, where it wasn't getting wet, but it does drop below freezing briefly, occasionally. It's very hard to obtain in Britain so I am still kicking myself 4 years later!!

Drusilla,

Thanks, I'll be sure to save a couple. I spoke with the guy who propagates the plant at Strybing. Strybing doesn't get many frosts. However he used to propagate it at UC Botanical Garden in Berkeley. He says they had below freezing temps when he grew it. So maybe there's something else going on? Maybe it depends on the clone? Last winter we had a night colder than usual and it hit 26 F. I certainly wouldn't trust the plant to that. I think I'll put a cutting in the ground at some point to see how it does--but not the big plant. And I'll certainly keep a couple cuttings someplace warm.

Just how much shade can S. dombeyi tolerate? After reading that even Betsy Clebsch had troubles growing it, I want to put it in a good spot. They told me at Strybing, where I bought it, that it needs to "lean on someone", and not too much sun. I have a tree that it could climb on and be protected from frost, with what I would call bright shade underneath.

My impression from talking to the propagator at Strybing is that the plant needs some sun--a few hours a day. Morning sun is the best best. Mine gets sun in the morning, full shade in the afternoon. Many/most of its buds formed after I got it, so it's probably in a good location.

My plant is still in its 1 gallon pot and needs to be repotted. It is recovering nicely from being cut back. I moved it to take the picture.

This rooted cutting is growing right next to it:

I've moved the plant to protect from frosts, but it has been exposed to many nights in the 30s.

So far the S. dombeyi has been a vigorous plant, and it appears very happy here, even in a pot. Here's a link so you can see what sorts of temps it's been through since I got it:

Here is a link that might be useful: Temps of last 3 1/2 months from a nearby weather station