Blue, red, pink, white, … there are endless colors of sage. An easy and fragrant plant, to be chosen with the advice of Roland Motte, our gardener.
You may use sage in cooking or for your herbal teas, but here is shrub sage, rather decorative for your garden. A good plan, to bring color to your flowerbeds, with Roland Motte, the gardener of France Bleu Besançon and France Bleu Lorraine.
What is tree sage?
On earth and on all continents, there are nearly 1,000 species of sage and the one that interests us today is the shrub sage. They are called Greigii, Grahamii or microphylla. They are small perennial shrubs that come from Mexico. The advantage, of course, is its flowering. A long flowering that begins in spring, which ends in autumn depending on the variety. It’s a lot of small flowers, with a lot of color. Sage is part of the Lamiaceae family, just like mints, the most famous Grahamii sage, which makes its small flowers in the shape of a drop of san, is native to Mexico and southern Arizona.
It is a shrub that can grow up to a meter, even a meter and fifty high. Shrub sage is melliferous. It means it attracts bees. Its foliage is aromatic. Not as much, of course, as sage.
Caring for your shrub sage
They are full sun plants that are very undemanding at ground level. They grow in all types of soil and tolerate drought well. We will generally prune them in early spring. We will cut them quite short, but we can also prune them in the fall, at the end of flowering, and we take the opportunity to make cuttings because it is very easy to cut.
When buying a shrub sage, learn about the variety anyway. Some are a bit more resistant to cold than others. Those that are less resistant to cold, you can plant them in pots and you can bring them in in winter.
– Roland Motte
Find Roland Motte on France Bleu Lorraine and France Bleu Besançon and on his site www.rolandmotte.fr.