Does anyone know if sage can self-pollinate or if it must be cross-pollinated?
I have a large bush of Cleveland sage "Alan Chickering", which was supposedly produced by crossing Cleveland sage and purple sage. I don't know if it's a straight hybrid or not.
Anyhow, investigating its flower heads I found some small seeds, and I know that the bees, hoverflies, and hummers LOVE this plant; they're always all over it. I don't have room in my garden, or time, to be planting new stuff, but I was thinking of making it available to other people.
But what can I say will grow out of it? Will I get more like the parent? Or weird hybrids based on the Cleveland/purple parents of those? Or will I get hybrids from sages growing in the gardens of my neighbors? I haven't seen any other Cleveland sage in town, but there are plenty of other salvias in my garden alone. If it self pollinates it probably won't be *too* weird, I guess, but if it's been pollinated by the pineapple sage I also grow, it could get very weird indeed.
Sage propagation by seed?
No one knows?
Well, I'll hopefully package my collected seeds up this month. :)
(I got a LOT of nasturtiums and a few other things as well.)
Hi Flit...
My guess would be the plants from the seeds won't be entirely true to the parent.
Usually the only way to get plants entirely true from hybrids is cuttings or other forms of non-sexual reproduction. But, it depends on how stable the cross is. Some hybrids do come true from seed.
Before offering them for trade, I would first check to see if they are viable. If they do germinate, you could wait to find out if they are true or be upfront and tell folks that they are seeds from hybrids which may not entirely reflect their parents.
Thank you! It will probably produce very odd seeds indeed. I am kind of a black thumb where seed is concerned so I might just give it to anyone who wants to try it out, if they want nasturtiums or the like, and explain the dubious heritage. If salvias interbreed freely, there are a lot of other salvias in my garden for them to breed with.
Given my black thumb I probably won't be trading much anyhow, but I've had some interest in my kind of weirdy nasturtiums (one thing I *was* able to sprout was Empress of India, and that's been merrily interbreeding with the more normal climbers and doing some interesting if unpredictable things with leaf and flower coloration). They might be a little nonstandard looking sometimes, but they do self-seed reliably every year, and they've been producing huge amounts of easy to gather seed.
So I was thinking of just offering some seed for a SASE, with reliable things like nasturtiums and borage (all of which self-seed reliably in my garden), and letting people try out the sage in addition if they're interested. I don't know if my germination tests would be proof of anything. :)