I bought and planted my Salvia "Hot Lips' in May 2011. It is planted in a raised bed of 50% sand and 50% compost, south facing but shaded part of the day by a large cedar tree. It normally grows to about 2.5 feet high, with many branches and flowers for and extended amount of time. This year there was construction going on near it, and the main part of the shrub was broken off in the fall (I normally prune it back in the Spring). Now this spring there is no sign of life, I have scraped the bark and there is no green. Do you think the effective hard pruning in the fall caused the death of this plant?
Maybe trampled out but probably froze - I lost Grevillea 'Ruby Clusters' to cold this winter also, which means it got cold enough to take out a few California items such as these.
Yes I looked back on Environment Canada's site and the coldest weather we had last winter at the airport was -10C on December 7, 2013. From what I can gather 'Hot Lips' tolerates down to -12C. Now we live in Kitsilano so it is usually colder here, plus the plant is in a raised bed, so being frozen probably did it in. Next time I will protect it, as I did with my newly planted hellebores, which came through fine.
