I started some seeds from Salvia Splendens "Kaleidoscope Mixed" outdoors in a little pot on Dec 4, 2004. Germination was very fast, less ...Read Morethan a week.
"Sow February to April. Germinate at 20-30C (68-86F) on the surface of a good free draining, damp seed compost" -said the instructions :) I guess I didn't follow it.
As of today, five months later, (May 2005), I have one Salvia plant growing very well. (the other ones died as I didn't provide the proper care after germination, let the compost dried out, etc so I was lucky that one plant survived)
Current temperature is about 31C to 36C during the day and 26C to over 30C at night, but the salvia is doing well.
It has direct sunlight (the sun is extremely hot in this area of the Yucatan Peninsula although we are in spring) but the sun does not touch the plant for a long time to avoid burning.
I expect flowers in summer.
The compost is rich in organic matter and kept damp but not wet :)
It's my first salvia and let's see what happen. I plan to grow other cultivars like Blaze of Fire for summer flowering.
The advantage of living in this part of the world is that we don't have to wait for the "last frost" or something like that. We do have low temperatures in winter but we never reach 0C so we can start seeds outdoors and even grow some "cool weather" plants starting seeds in late summer-fall.
I started some seeds from Salvia Splendens "Kaleidoscope Mixed" outdoors in a little pot on Dec 4, 2004. Germination was very fast, less ...Read More