• Remove the saucer from the bottom of the plastic pot and make sure there are lots of good drainage holes.  Write the Serial Number (if there is one) of the plant you are about to repot on it's new pot. 

• Pour a 1" layer of pea-sized or 'river gravel' (which is nicely rounded) to cover the drainage holes and prevent gradual erosion of all the dirt through the drain holes in the bottom.  This also provides a way for salvia's roots to get ample air and helps prevent root rot.  Push the gravel into piles over the drain holes so your soil doesn't wash out.

• Fill the pot to within 5 in. of the top rim with your potting soil and tamp and press it down some.  If you water it now and let it settle and subside you can add some more dirt to refill it to the 5 in. below the rim line.  

 

Make sure it'll fit in there! Leave an inch or two clearance below the rim to fill with water: do not put the plant and new dirt level flush with the pots rim. If you did the water would just run off and not soak in to the soil.

• Holding your new baby in one hand place your index and middle finger of the other hand on either side of your plant's stem and lay it across the top of the pot.  You'll be making a letter "V" with your fingers and the baby will be inside the letter "V".  

• Turn the baby and the pot upside down and press your index finger of the hand that pot was sitting on right in the middle of the bottom of the pot and press downward.  

• The pressure will eject the root ball and the gravel from the pot and the baby will drop an inch or two onto your fingers and free of its old pot.  





• Place the baby on top of the dirt in the new pot and make sure its stem points straight upwards, 
  



• then fill it in around the sides of the baby with the potting soil up to the level of the existing surface of your plant and tamp lightly.  

• If you water it now the water will redistribute some of the soil and there will be some settling in the soil around the plant: After the water has drained refill dirt around the plant so it is flush with the surface of its old soil.  Do not bury the root ball below the surface of the new soil.  The old (existing) roots require access to surface air in order to prevent root rot and for best growth.   Leave 2 to 4 inches free space below the rim to hold water!
  



• After you water it again and it has settled out you insert the tomato stake all the way down to the bottom of the new pot and gently but firmly tie your plant to it for support.  
• Place in a shady location where it will get only an hour or two of direct sun (but not a full days worth). Place the pot up on bricks so the drain holes are not blocked and air can get in after all the water drains out. Water it once more in the new location. 
  



• Wait to water it again only when the soil looks and feels really dry, or if you see it start drooping. Then you water it for about an hour, soak it good and let it get totally saturated, then let the surface layer of it dry out again before the next watering.  

I wish you blessed and happy gardening.

If you got your plants from me they will have a series of codes printed on its rooting/shipping pot. I encourage you to mark or label the top code from the original pot (that plant's unique registry/sequence code) onto the new pot before repotting the plant. Every plant that is a clone of my proven self-fertile Salvia divinorum tree has had it's vital information recorded, and a serial code assigned to it, when it's parent plant donates the cutting. (8 digits for date code [as yyyymmdd] and 4 digits for the exact minute [Pacific time: in 24 hr. format] of 'birth': the code in the lower left is the sequence code of the donor plant*).  

If you wish to propagate or sell 'self-fertile clones' of Salvia yourself, at some time in the future, with that top code you can trace your plants genetic lineage back to my original seed-bearing plant. It's sort of a pedigree of her "family tree", as it were. Your plants will grow just as fast without that code on their new pot. And the birthplace is San Diego, CA. if you wish to cast an astrological chart for the plant.

Registering the plants I love, as they are born, is my own idea. And you can tell from the very careful way they were packed that I do care what happens to them after they leave my hands. Not one plant has been smashed while shipping them "Express Mail": once in a while a leaf gets crumpled or falls off but never have they arrived broken!


 * Most of you got a donor/parent code of C3 on your pots. C3 (seen on the right side of the photo here) later took the name Calvin.  Six feet tall in 2 years of growing.

5 of my giant Salvia Divinorum trees: Calvin is the plant on the right. Healthy cuttings start with healthy parent stock!