Salvia patens oxford blue
Robmarston
Posts: 335
i have just bought a small salvia patens oxford blue which was a cutting from a nursery. I love the colour and want to help it thrive. The nursery said I should treat it as an annual, that they were hard to keep perennial and were not like dahlias. She said I should bring it indoors during the winter. However, everything I've read online has said to lift and store 'just like a dahlia'. I've got a few dahlias and store them each year so I'm very familiar with this process.
At the moment the cutting is about 9 inches tall, a single stem with a few branches and two flowers. I have potted it up into gritty mpc and put it in my cold green house. How do I best establish and strengthen it this year and ensure it comes back next year? Thanks for any help and suggestions.
Posts
I had this dilemma last year. I left mine in the ground and covered them up with mulch. They survived but are very late to flower. However, they are much sturdier this year. If you lift them and they fail to thrive, it is easy to grow them from seed. Good luck.
I always think these, and plants like the Mirabilis, are quicker to flower from seed thanfrom over-wintering roots. I left S. patens in the garden last year, it's growing but nowhere near flowering. It's usually more advanced that this at the end of July
Last edited: 23 July 2017 11:41:32
In the sticks near Peterborough
I concur - mine survive outside in a raised bed but are always late to appear and flower.
Thanks all for the advice. I'll try lifting and storing but also grow from seed next year. Can I harvest seed from this plant or should I order new?
It grows from own seed very well, as long as there's time left to ripen fully
In the sticks near Peterborough
Roots stored inside over winter in a greenhouse, are bigger plants and flower earlier than seedlings sown in March. I always collect seed and so have a few old plants flowering first and then new plants flowering later in the season. They die if left in the soil here over winter. Make sure the seed is brown before you collect it and store in paper envelopes to sow next year. The large seeds are easy to single sow in plug trays.
stored in the GH is the difference fidget. Mine flower later than seed raised because they stay in the ground.
In the sticks near Peterborough
I lift mine, and Amistad , because again with Amistad, left in the ground, they eventually flowered but later than the cuttings I had taken and overwintered inside.