Salvia Elegans, better known as Pineapple sage, is a simple plant to propagate. What is more it has a beautiful red late flower that here gives a great dash of red in the garden through late September and October.

Salvia Elegans primary usage is in  teas and cocktails, it also tastes great sprinkled on top of a fruit salad- and has a lot lower carbon footprint that a real pineapple.

Take a good look at the main stems, all along the stem should be a series of side shoots popping up from each side of the nodes. Very gently snap off the shoot as close to the node as possible. If you are pretty thorough this will leave the stem quite leggy. To ensure a strong plant next spring it is a good idea after flowering to cut the main stem back to 10cm above the ground. This will give you an abundance of new stems next year and a much stronger, attractive bush of a plant.

Next prune down  the cuttings, the less leaves the cutting has to support the more chance of success. Leave the top few leaves but pinch our any side leaves. If there is a flower bud pinch that out too. If you leave the flower bud on then the shoot will put all it’s remaining energy into the flower and not into growing new roots.

 

Put 10 or so shoots into a large pot full of a high quality planting soil. like Orgasyl. Now the most important thing is the soil must never dry out, keep it humid but not soaking to avoid rot. After two weeks start looking under the pot for roots. When you see roots coming out of the bottom soak the soil, wait for a few minutes and then turn the pot out. Carefully sperate out the plants and re-pot into large plantation pots. Within three weeks the plants are ready to plant out. I find planting out in early Spring gives best results. These plants are not Garrigue plants and a drop by drop watering system is a good idea in dry climates.