This is the hybrid that was found in Wendy's garden, the flowers are large and this plant is gorgeous,posting pics to share.
Salvia 'Wendy's Wish'
The foliage.
Nice, annette...lookie at that cutie! Love the color. Watch out, we'll all wish for WW:-)
Bev
Ahh It is so pretty in real life and a prolific flowerer which is great about the hybrids, hoping it reaches your shores,
Annette
Me, too. Love the dark pinks anyway:-)) Prolific is good, too!
I just saw the plant at Plant Delights, where it is being trialled. It should not be propagated, since it is under patent protection.
Tony told me about it so I could take a stab at identifying its possible parents, then pass the info on to PlantHaven.
The lower lip is really quite large for a long, tubular sage. The foliage is glossy, suggesting either buchananii or miniata. Something about the calyxes, which are persistent and colored, is very familiar, and I have not yet placed it.
The images on Plant Growers Australia for Wendy's Wish were very impressive.
I am now thinking that it might be a buchananii x miniata cross as well. If anyone can get me in touch with its discoverer by private email, I'd like to start correspondence with them.
Curiouser and curiouser!!! Can certainly see a possible link with the foliage of buchananii and miniata.....but though the flowers vaguely resemble those of the lovely buchananii....nothing like those of miniata, to my eyes.
Read recently that buchananii may be a hybrid of unknown parentage, just to confuse matters.
Is it possible that splendens or Van Houttei could be involved here? The very long corolla could suggest this.
Splendens is from Brazil, the others from Mexico....but hybrids can still occur??? I have recently heard about S. viscosa crossing with something from South Africa....would DNA testing be required for proof?
Robin.
I really doubt if splendens or any of its vanhouttei forms is involved because of the large lower lip (rather strong for a hybrid) and the relatively short hood. In comparison, Black Knight, a supposed guaranitica x vanhouttei hybrid, is relatively "chinless and beardless", and the lower lip that is there is further back the corolla. I am guessing miniata rather than gesneriflora because it is so freely flowering during the summer.
Andy Matcen's Raspberry Truffle has the combined bloom period of its parents, mexicana and gesneriflora. The face of the bloom is rather inflated than mexicana. I do not consider that mexicana is a parent of Wendy's Wish because of the flower color. I suspect the other parent besides buchananii will be a scarlet sage like miniata because of the bloom period and flower color. I think involucrata (and puberula) may be eliminated because of the large lower lip. Other hybrids of involucrata retain the smaller size. I think that the cardinalis form of fulgens is still a good bet.
The leaf shape of Wendy's Wish suggest a heart shaped leaf like those of mexicana. On this score, the other parent probably should be glabrous, like miniata, involucrata, and nexicana.
Of course there is the real possibility that some of these traits will be totally subsumed by the other parent, so the resolution of the parentage is still a puzzlement. It's a lot of fun speculating, though.
In person this is a gorgeous , gorgeous plant. Well worth growing as an annual if necessary.
I just saw it at UGA and agree that it is lovely. I can't wait for it to be available for purchase.
It is great in the garden, I have mine in full sun and it is growing brilliantly, doesnt that make one of the parents a sun loving sage as opposed to shade lovers like buchananii and miniata:)
Both buchananii and miniata can grow well in full sun with me. With miniata, the foliage takes on a burgundy coloration, probably as a means to reduce excess solar radiation.
I believe the nursery applying for the patent is Plant Growers Australia (PGA). Click on the small photo on the upper left for some nice images of WW.
http://www.pga.com.au/view_plant.asp?plant_id=257
It looks like they are also doing their own series of greggii (Heatwave) and are responsible for S. sinalonensis Aztec Blue