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Care and Growth of Sage
Some sages are valuable cooking herbs, some are beautiful drought
tolerant garden bloomers. Consider adding these plants to your
garden.
 Cooking or Garden
Sage
(Salvia Officinalis)
This is culinary sage, but all types do well in low water
gardens. They
are fairly drought resistant and don't mind the heat.
They
like full sun to part shade and grow about 1 foot tall and wide here,
with beautiful blue blooms in the
Spring.
The papery blue flowers can be dried for arrangements
Fresh sage is great stuffed into chicken or turkey roasts. Just
rinse off a branch before using it whole. Use a whole
orange with your stuffing for a great flavor combo.
Culinary sage can be added to your drought tolerant herb garden along
with rosemary.
 California White Sage
(Salvia apiana)
This beautiful shrub is native to Southern California and Baja.
It is
usually found growing wild in the coastal sage scrub habitat on the
western edges of the Mojave and Sonoran deserts.
It grows five
feet
tall (at least) and 5 feet across.
White Sage is also called Bee Sage; my
camera was lucky enough to catch one on a flower. The leaves are
up to
4 inches long, thick and velvety and are slightly sticky.
The
whole
plant is very aromatic so you should find a spot in your garden where
you can enjoy its fragrance.
The silvery plant seems to glow in the moonlight. The flowers are
white, sometimes tinted purple and are produced in whorls on long
branches up to three feet long.
White sage is considered sacred by Native Americans, like the Chumash,
in the southwestern United States. The Peterson Field Guide To
Western
Medicinal Plants And Herbs describes it thus: "Considered an
expectorant; used for colds, coughs, sore throats and systemic poison
oak rashes.
An important ceremonial plant among
southwestern Indian
groups. The herb was burned as a fumigant after an illness in the
dwelling and to cleanse sacred spaces.
Annual Sage
(Salvia sp.)
Many annual sages are grown for quick color in the garden. One of
the more common forms are red. Other colors can include pink,
white and yellow.
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