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salvia grow advice

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inaniel

inaniel

mas alla del mar
hello everyone,



i've recently started to grow my first salvia. and actually, probably my first plant ever


i received them about a week ago and have had the plants in a humidity chamber for most of the time, except to get some air and indirect sunlight a few times a day.


one of them seems to be doing well, the other was damaged but i'm not giving up on it.


how long should i keep it in a humidity chamber? i don't water often, just feel the soil to make sure its moist. is that a good way to go about it? at what point should i re-pot it? any help will be much appreciated


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Let the soil dry out completely before you water it again, in my experience overwatering/or keeping the soil too wet with a young salvia div plant is one of the quickest way to kill it. It will let you know when it needs more water by drooping its leaves.

Try not to shock the plant by doing too much to "help" it. They are very adaptable once established, if you move it around alot or keep changing its light exposure it wont be happy. Its very light sensitive, it can take 3-4 hours aday of direct light but shaded light is best.

I never worry about the humidity of cuttings, its not that important.

Put it outdoors if you can if the climate is good.
 
I'm sure others with more experience can chime in, but I can relay my advice after having a few plants and some cuttings for about 8 months now...

The one in good shape may be okay to harden off at this point. I do mine by starting them off outside the humidity dome for about 30 minutes one day (in shade), then if they do okay I'll try an hour the next day, then a few hours the following, etc. I would recommend being nearby when you do this, however, in case they are over-extended and start dropping.

For the one not looking so good, I would stake it up and keep it in the dome and give it some days to give it a chance to strengthen up as well as possible before hardening off.

I was working on hardening off some young ones this week when I was interrupted for about 1.5 hours. I came back and all 3 were nearly completely laying down in their pots. I staked them up, sprayed them, put them in a dome, and they all recovered enough to stand up on their own again after several hours. It's amazing how bad they can look and still recover, although I felt TERRIBLE when I saw how limp they were!

Personally, I'm in a cool-weather climate and still need to bring mine inside every night. I babied my cuttings and tried to keep them in humidity chambers as much as possible to give them the best chance to survive once they can stay outside full-time. In fact, I bought a tall, clear storage container to give them some extra time after they became too tall for a standard 7" dome. I then made an even larger dome out of pvc and visqueen for them once they were too big for the storage container. This is probably overkill and maybe I should have hardened them off sooner, but this is the method I've used and has been successful.

Best of luck with them!

EDIT - I see Twig posted at the same time I did - his advice would trump mine!!
 
thanks! helps a lot. how long until I change to a larger pot?



i would like to put them outside... but i live in an eight unit apartment complex, there's a few people with dogs that urinate on the plants outside. caught them peeing on my wife's aloe and succulents. plus, i live in dallas, texas. it feels great now, but its going to get to the upper 80's and 90's pretty soon. there's a large shaded area in-between the two buildings but i wonder if the texas heat might not be too much.


the only other plant i've attempted to grow was a bridgesii mostruosa. i went to check on it one day and a small rodent/possibly teenage kid had eaten the hell out of it :(
 
You need to be real careful with repotting, the hollow stems can break easily once she is a couple of feet tall and around that time there maybe a few shoots coming off of it.

So you could go about it a few ways, wait until its a foot tall and then take cuttings and start to root them so it will be easier for repot.

or you could just put it in a larger pot right now and not worry about it.
I have a few mother plants that doing just fine in 3 & 4 gallon pots.

FYI, Salvia likes plastic pots better then clay/ceramic pots. Not that big of a deal but the moisture levels seem to be more regualted to what it likes in plastic.

Texas should be fine if its shaded. It gets real hot and sticky around here (mid-atlantic) and they do great outside, but understand if dog & kids are a problem. Find a little wild patch that no one goes to, thats the traditional method of cultivation hidden away from pesky creepers.

but you know as seen above from physics envy, everyone can have different methods and still get plants to thrive.
 
thanks again, really appreciate the advice. hope to update this thread in the future with grow progress and eventually some bioassays.
 
My plants are looking pretty healthy. One is over a foot now. I think I want to try to propagate. Do you guys root in water, or soil? It seems when I research online, water is recommended, but i saw several videos of people rooting in soil on youtube.
 
water is pretty simple and easy and you can see whats happening with the roots. If your cuttings have large leaves, sometimes them leaves to droop a little for a day or two or three or four but they should perk right back up once they happys drinking the water.
 
I prefer to top mine too so I get a more bushy plant, I am not sure if folks think that is better or worse but it works for me, your plant is looking decent, good job

I also root in water and a couple inches of perlite in a pint glass probably not necessary but again it works for me, I just cut then put it in a prepared pint glass half filled with water and 2/3 inches of perlite then strip all the leaves but the top node or two and wait a couple of weeks or until the roots are about an inch long then pot in 12" plastic pots
 
BUMP


Long story short: I was temporarily homeless last year and had my salvia plant watched by someone who eventually moved to europe (for what was supposed to be an extended amount of time), i thought my plant was long dead. but she returned unexpectedly because of visa issues and informed me that my plant was alive, which I retrieved tonight. This is the condition it was in:









it's fallen down quite a bit but still alive. should I take cuttings of this, or prop it up using plant support? the stem closer to the soil seems very thin compared to the rest.
 
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