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Re: Salvia pruning

At 11:28 AM 7/9/98 PST, rachel wrote:
>Thank you, Richard and Deborah, for your advice regarding salvia 
>pruning.  I should have remembered to mention that my garden in is 
>Berkeley, Calif.  so I don't have to worry about frosts.  It's really 
>salvia confertifolia and s. Indigo Spires that have been the most 
>challenging.  Principally because they simply grew so well last year, 
>reaching almost six feet tall and four feet wide.  I cut them down to 
>about one foot in late Dec.  I will take your advice, Deborah, and 
>wait this year until the new growth appears to prune them.  thanks 
>again

Rachel -

This recalls a story of a friend's Salvia.  I had given her the plant
and she asked the very same questions when it reached over 10ft tall!!
(I think it was Salvia purpurea).  It was clearly going to get really
poor looking very soon, with the tallest stems starting to sway a bit
to far from the vertical!  I told her to check the base and sure enough
there was lots of new shoots ready to take over.  On the day she was
cutting it down to these shoots, a bicyclist pedalling by (this is also
a Berkeley garden, and perhaps mostly Berkeley residents will understand
the next part of this story) hollered 'DON'T CUT DOWN THAT TREE!'.  She
was so incensed to be accused to wrongfully, she ran out into the street
and yelled back at him 'IT'S NOT A TREE - IT A SALVIA!', but alas, he was
already long out of earshot around the corner!!   ;-)

Happy Gardening!
Sean O.

 Sean A. O'Hara                     sean.ohara@ucop.edu
 710 Jean Street                    (510) 987-0577
 Oakland, California 94610-1459     h o r t u l u s   a p t u s
 U.S.A.                             'a garden suited to its purpose'
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