If California had a state fragrance, my vote would go to Cleveland sage leaves. My second choice would be hummingbird sage leaves (see last month's column), and my next choice would be white sage leaves. Each one of these is distinctive and evokes a different mood, color, and sense of place. But all of them are salvias.
Betsy Clebsch, the author of two books on salvias from around the world, talked about salvias and led a tour of her garden this spring. All of the following evergreen shrubby sages grow best in full sun with good drainage, no fertilizer, and no summer water once established. You can't go wrong with any of the numerous cleveland sage cultivars, Betsy said. She likened their leaf fragrance to rose potpourri. The secrets to growing them are no extra water after the plant is established, perfect drainage, and cutting back a little each January. She singled out the cultivar Winnifred Gilman for its prolific flowers. It forms a 3 foot airy shrub with ashy green leaves. In early summer, its 1 foot ruby-red flowering stems are covered with whorls of violet-blue flowers.
Cleveland sages grow fast and are often planted as fillers, meant to be removed after slower-growing plants fill in. But the scent is so beguiling that gardeners find a way to keep them, or find a different spot to plant a new one.
If you like to spend time in your garden at night, a dramatic plant in moonlight is white sage, with its gray-white leaves and pink-stemmed inflorescences. The shrub is 4 feet tall and wide, with flowering stems in the spring that can tower up to 9 feet high. Prune the stems after flowering. The pungently scented leaves were used in native american ceremonies. Its native habitat is dry, rocky slopes, and because it can get dense, it benefits from good air circulation. Its leaves are larger than many other sages, lending a coarser texture.
Black sage, despite its name, has small shiny mid-green leaves. It forms mounds 3 to 5 feet high and almost as wide. Several lower-growing cultivars are more commonly used in landscapes, particularly the 2 foot high Terra Seca, which can spread 6 feet wide. Betsy called it a substantial, tough, and easy to grow and contain plant. Its spring flowers are tiny and white. Keep it low by pruning any upright growth as it appears.
Purple sage is named for its pinkish purple flowers. In the spring new leaves emerge light green, turning to gray-white as the days warm up. It forms a soft mound 3 to 5 feet tall and wide, with flowering stalks adding another 6 inches or so in spring. Like cleveland sage, it appreciates a light trim in January. Betsy has found the purple sages to be long-lived in her garden.
All of these sages can hybridize freely with each other and, in some cases, with some of the annual sages. If you have more than one type of salvia in your garden, keep an eye out for any hybrids that may appear – and new fragrances.
© 2009 Tanya Kucak