This one I’m pretty excited about because it’s so different. Salvia Gregii “furmans Red”. I’ve been using it for years as landscape plants. Beautiful little flowers and great hummingbird attractor. Ive always thought they could be Bonsai but I’ve never seen a trunk on one like this! The branches are crazy brittle so I think it’s clip and grow through and through.
@Leo in N E Illinois i feel like you may appreciate this one being a plant guy.
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I tried Salvia gregii, S. microphylla, S. g. 'Black & Blue'. I discovered that I can not winter them, my winter storage is too humid. They all rot away. They need the lower humidity of the desert southwest. I've always thought that Salvia would be a really cool flowering bonsai. The various Autumn sages, with their fragrant flowers and blaze of color, how can you go wrong? I'm surprised growers in Texas & southern California have not made Salvia the emblem flowering tree of southwestern bonsai.
Of course like many, I have indulged my climate zone envy. I have only tried the zone 7 southwestern sages. I have not tried the zone 5 hardy Salvia azurea. I did have a Salvia officinalis bush in the back yard, it lasted about 10 years, then perished one winter where we had an unusually cold winter, -20 F. It had survived -10 F several times, but the -20 F was too cold for culinary sage. Potted plants of Salvia officinalis, would not survive winter in the well house. They do okay on the windowsill, but I have lost them when taking weekend trips and forgetting to make proper watering arrangements.
I tried wintering my sages in an underground well house. It used to (actually still does have) the well for the well. Now its just a hole in the floor, the pump & pressure tank were removed when municipal water was installed in the 1950's. Old farm houses that have cities grow up around them sometimes have useful features. It is a room, off the foundation, below ground. What appears to be a patio in the back yard is the roof of a 6 x 8 x 4 foot tall room. I have to stoop to get in there. The room never gets colder than +32 F. Sometimes I get a light frost when its -20 F outside in January. Problem is the room tends to weep moisture through the concrete block, so the humidity is near 99% most of the winter. I leave a fan running in there 24hr/7days which makes it okay for deciduous trees, JBP and Satsuki azalea. But the humidity is just too high for southwestern desert sages, they all turn to mush over the winter.
) but I like the idea of this one being a bit more wild. I need to do another round of 360 videos that may help my awful photog skills.
That’s a lot of trees!
