Perennials: New picture of Salvia oxyphora, 1 by jimcrick

jimcrick wrote:
Richard

My routine is to have cuttings rooted and potted up before the winter sets in. I take the cuttings in late August/early September and root them in a couple of propagators (with low level under-heating at night time) that can each take about 30off 3" square pots. I usually have about 3-5 cuttings per pot. I use a proprietary soil-free compost mixed in equal parts with perlite.

When cuttings root (or fail!!!) and can be removed from the propagator, other cuttings take their place until I have sufficient of each species/variety for my overwintering needs. (I want about a total of 450 or so vigorously growing rooted cuttings of about 50 different plants ready to plant out in about mid-May. This means that I need sufficient overwintered plants to be able to provide me with cutting material in spring. Of course many of the overwintered cuttings are also suitable for planting out in spring but quite often their offspring prove more vigorous.)

Plants which I know to root slowly are started early (if I remember) or, if needs be, left in the propagator over winter. However, I prefer to get everything rooted before winter sets in so that they can be out of the propagator and potted up individually. I pot up each rooted cutting in a 3" pot with the same proprietary compost mixed with perlite in the ratio 2:1. The perlite gives sufficient extra drainage to minimise avoid over-watering losses. Some vigorous cuttings may well get a second potting up before the depths of winter arrive.

I overwinter the potted up cuttings in a potting shed (I don't have a greenhouse) which is kept just frost free over the winter months. The potting shed is only 8' x 6' but with a system of hanging wire trays I manage to make enough pace with sufficient light to keep my plants happy.

In general I don't find oxyphora to difficult to overwinter and last winter's problems were really from taking cuttings from spider-mite weakened plants rather than overwintering difficulties. I seem to remember Robin (2Salvia) Middleton recording somewhere that oxyphora could sometimes come through our winter here but that subsequent growth was too weak to make adequate growth to flower well.

This winter I'm going to try overwintering a mature plant of oxyphora in a pot in my garage in the same way as I do with my various patens - i.e. cut down and no water until spring.

Here is pic of my overwintering cuttings: