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My Salvia Divinorum Plant Situation

Thanks for coming, I'd appreciate any advice.


Ok, heres the story: I was fortunate enough to come across quite a few SD plants for a very reasonable price (thanks to a well-known plant supplier on the SalviaD yahoo group! I'd give credit where credit is due, but I'm not sure if he even wants credit at this point.) All were cuttings when I received them, and had not been planted. Some were rooted already, others had yet to put out root. The rooted ones I planted almost immediatly, but I of course waited for the unrooted cuttings to put out roots before planting them. So in all of these pictures, some of the plants were planted much sooner than others. The first ones were planted during the second week of June, and the last of them, only about two weeks ago. (All of the more recently planted ones are outdoor, though many of the plants I have outdoors were planted over a month ago as well). I really should have kept track of which I planted when, but to be honest, I really am not sure which have been planted for a long time, and which havent.

I live in california, a ways north of San Francisco. It's not really very humid here, but it's not quite as dry as say Arizona. In the summer, temps can get up to about 105 degrees F, but usually stay around in the 90s in the heat of the day. My indoor plants are kept pretty cool, though, in an air-conditioned house.

The soil I used was a seedling mix, mixed with a potting soil with no nitrates (compost) but a lot of perlite and vermiculite. They seemed to transplant into it very well. I gave them a lot of water when I first planted them, but really only give them water very rarely now, at the first sign of droopage. The soil tends to hold moisture VERY well so I worry about rot. I did put gravel in the bottoms of the pots, in hopes that it would promote better drainage, but it seems like the moisture tends to stick around just beneath the surface. The pots are reasonable large, as you will see in the pictures, but... in a few of them, I planted 3 plants in the same pot. I am hoping this wasn't a foolish thing.

The problem: First of all... they don't seem to be growing. They put out new leaves every now and then, but as you can see in the pictures, most of them are staying pretty... scraggily-looking (for lack of a better term). They all are pretty much staying the same size. A few have grown a little, but not much. I thought that I would have seen more positive change (growth) in them from when they were cuttings after they had been planted for well over a month and a half.
Secondly, many of them are very brown all around the edges (some worse than others). I know that this isn't necessarily something to worry about, so long as the new leaves don't do it. Well... they do. As you can see in the pics, even the baby leaves turn brown and crispy at their edges. I tried misting them for a while, but it didn't seem to help much, and I stopped, as there seems to be real conflicting advice on when and how much you should mist your plants, or if you should at all. And since it seemed to make no difference, I figured I'd rather have plants that were used to the conditions as they are, than have my plants get used to being misted all the time. Also, some of the leaves are appearing deformed. None are really "corkscrewing" or anything, but many of them are really pretty curly. Again, the pics will show this.

Anyway, if any of you reading this have any advice, tips, suggestions, etc., then please feel free to email me or reply to my post on the yahoo group message board (so others who may be having the same problems can get the advice too).

My indoor plants:


Here are the plants I have indoors. I took this picture to show what kind of lighting they get. Unfortunatly, this picture is a little bit misleading, as it appears they are in direct light. However, they are not. This window faces west, so the only time the sun does shine directly through it is late afternoon, and at that time, with the sun low in the sky, the wall blocks all direct light, and the plants still only get indirect. I often close the blinds on that window too, but there is still plenty of ambient/indirect light from other windows in the room. The plant with only one leaf was actually one of my healthiest. It was frustratingly broken by my excited dog, though.
A Very Sad Plant:

This is probably the plant that is the worst-off. It never grew at all, never put out new leaves, and as you can see, just doesn't look healthy at all. I'm not sure why... I treated it the same as all the other indoor plants. I really have no hope that this one will survive. Fortunatly, this is as bad as it gets.
A Happier Plant:

In contrast to the last image, this plant is definitely my healthiest. Sorry if the picture is blurry, but if it weren't, you would be able to see that there is SOME brown around the edges of most of the leaves. One of which has quite a bit (it has browned considerably more, just since I took this picture). The new leaves a little bit too.
Plants in one pot:

Heres one of the pots with more than one plant in it. The picture is self explanitory.
Another sickly-looking runt of a plant:

Not much better than the first sickly one.
Looking up:

Heres the underside view of some of the plants. I have looked VERY closely for parasites and see none, though I suppose that doesn't mean there aren't any.
More pictures:




My Outdoor Plants


Overall, I would say that my outdoor plants are healthier than the indoors plants. They get a bit more sunlight, but still no direct sunlight. They are east-facing, but beneath an overhang, so there is a lot of ambient light. I am more concerned about parasites with these, but so far haven't noticed any. Spiders do make webs between them all the time, which I clean off, but these are just ordinary spiders and not parasitic to the plants. (I have used -no- pesticides at all, and I would like to continue that way). The only big difference I can think of that would effect them is the temperature. Humidity is about the same indoors and out most of the time. Though I plan to cross this bridge when I come to it, I also worry about these plants because in the winter, it is not at all out of the ordinary to drop below freezing in the early mornings here. I water them the same way I water the indoor plants. I should mention that at first, I was watering them with water from our hose. We have well-water, not city-water so I thought it would be ok. However, there is a high amount of iron in our water here. I don't know if that would effect the plants at all, but I figured it couldn't hurt to start giving them distilled drinking water instead, which I have been for the past 3 weeks or so. (only about 3 waterings total.)

If there is anything you feel I've left out or need to specify, please email me.
The Outdoor Plants:

closer view:

The outdoor plants tend to have more yellowed leaves, but are still in GENERAL, healthier.
Another Example:

They seem to have more leaves and drop them less often.
Deformed leaf:

This leaf almost seems like it was "pinched" in a few places. Notice the little brown areas on the leaf where it tends to "pinch" together. I found this odd and really thought it might be a parasite... but... I don't see any. And this is the only leaf (let alone, the only plant) that I see this on.
Droopy:

I usually would have watered before it drooped this much (usually water at the first sign, which is about once a week) but I guess I missed this one. I watered it right after taking the pictures.
Yellow leaf:

This is by far the yellowest plant I have. I'm still not sure what exactly that means.
More Pictures:


No, I am not using that "green all" plant food with these plants. It just happened to be sitting there.
Well, I think thats about it. Thanks for looking and reading. If anything is accomplished and my plants are healthier (esp if it is a result of someone's help) I will post updates.
-Veovis