The Green Thumb: Sage Advice (p. 14)

By Cheryl Doyle Kearns

This isn’t about what your grandmother might tell you – or maybe it is. Sages in the horticultural world are often known by the genus of the botanic name, Salvia. It does, indeed, include one of Grannie’s favorite herbs – sage. Your grandmother, with the infinite wisdom garnered from years of gardening experiences, might advise you to plant both the herb and its ornamental non-edible counterparts. She might tell you there are salvias for nearly every situation, that they provide a series of blooms from early spring through late fall, that even the modern edible cultivars are also quite ornamental, and that deer avoid them.

I first fell in love with the wide variety of salvias when I started working in a garden center and learned how durable, colorful, and texturally appealing they are. They offer such variety that it seems there is one for every spot in the garden, even shade. As deer began to invade our property and grew into a small herd of regular invaders, I was especially pleased to note that the salvias had not once been even slightly marred by rummaging pests. Salvias were one of the few plants that hardly noticed the extreme drought of 2007, coming back the following year magnificently.

The spring season starts with Salvia x superba, a short, clump-forming, non-seeding, spiky bloomer that looks stunning in front of late-flowering golden daffodils. Removing spent blossoms will often trigger a second show that extends their blooming season into mid-June. I constantly advise people to ask for a plant by its botanical name to be sure they get the one they want, but in this case, there seems to be some confusion over the species name. If you ask for ‘May Night’, which is the best-known cultivar, you’ll get a reliable, spring-blooming, dark blue flower. A little later to start blooming in my garden is the cultivar ‘Cardonna’, a slightly lower spike and a bit brighter blue. Both do well in the front of the border.

On a bank in my garden, a salmon-colored salvia links arms with a blue oak sage. Both are finely textured with a loose habit, which look all the more airy and inviting under the large leaves of a fig tree. The blue oak sage is a cobalt blue, a color rarely seen in many garden plants, its silvery leaves a perfect foil to the blossoms and pretty in their own right when the plant isn’t blossoming. I lost the tag for the orange salvia, but I suspect from the growth habit and its finer leaves that it might be a Texas sage.

Texas sages (Salvia greggii) are known for their bright colors and long blooming periods. Because of the unusually hot weather early this year, several in my garden began to bloom in April, but usually they are in flower from May until frost. If they get a bit leggy and lose their sparkle by late July, a good haircut rejuvenates them for a showy fall bloom. Also known as autumn or cherry sage, they are brightly colored and bloom until frost. As a rule, they don’t get much taller than 18”, but spread can be as wide as 3’.

One of the most popular summer-flowering sages is ‘Hot Lips’ (Salvia x microphylla ‘Hot Lips’), a bright red and white in each flower, but there will also be on the same plant at the same time a pure red or a pure white flower, covering the plant in kaleidoscope fashion. For a southwestern style garden, this is a must! It will easily fill a 5’ wide space within a couple years, so give it some space. Yuccas look great with it.

By late summer, Brazilian sage (Salvia guaranitica) reaches more columnar (4’-5’) proportions and offers bright blue flowers. As the name suggests, the cultivar ‘Black and Blue’ has bi-colored blossoms. In October, I look forward to the orange and yellow blossoms of Salvia ‘Jamie’ and Salvia ‘Red-Neck Girl’, respectively. ‘Jamie’ looks more like a shrub, whereas ‘Red-Neck Girl’ sends up flowering stalks that eventually reach over 7’. Both compliment the fall foliage of background trees in stunning fashion.

Japanese woodland sage (Salvia nipponica ‘Fuji Snow’) will enhance a lightly shaded garden. Their bright green and white leaves are lovely all summer, the lemon-yellow flowers adding a sparkle in the fall. This particular salvia is an effective ground cover, reaching about a foot in height. It completely disappears in winter, needing relatively little fall clean-up. Another salvia worth mentioning for fall shade gardens is Japanese yellow sage (S. koyame), a bit taller than the woodland sage, with softer yellow blossoms, and one that doesn’t spread more than 2’.

Although even edible sages are now available with colorful leaf patterns, another good reason to grow sages is to attract hummingbirds and butterflies. I have no feeders for hummingbirds, yet our garden is a regular feeding station for them because the salvias are spread throughout the beds. It’s a myth that hummingbirds won’t feed in the shade; I know because I’ve seen them there several times.

Sages need good drainage and many can take our Zone 7 winters if they don’t sit with water over their roots during the cold weather. It helps to plant them on a slight berm if your garden soil is clay, and don’t cut the stalks back until late spring; stems are hollow and would act as a conduit for water to reach down into the root system and freeze them. The shrubby sages may look unkempt, but once leaves start growing in spring, they can be trimmed back and any dead stalks can be removed.

Grandmother would say I haven’t even scratched the surface of the glorious range of salvias we can grow, including some of the annual and tender perennial ones; so I would take her advice to learn by trying your own.

Cheryl Doyle Kearns is a landscape designer, lecturer, and photographer. She has had a lifelong love of plants, gardening in climates as diverse as Vermont and England as well as North Carolina. She is a member of the Garden Writers Association and numerous other horticultural organizations.