Sage what does it look like

Skip to main content. You are here Gardening » Growing Guides. Planting, Growing, and Harvesting Sage. By The Editors. How to Plant Sage Plant sage in full sun. The easiest and best way to start sage is from a small plant. Set the plants 2 feet apart. You can also sow seeds up to two weeks before the last frost date. See local frost dates. Plants should grow to be between 12 and 30 inches in height. In the garden, plant near rosemary , cabbage , and carrots , but keep sage away from cucumbers.

Prune the heavier, woody stems every spring. How to Harvest Sage Pinch off leaves or snip off small sprigs from the plant. During the first year, harvest lightly to ensure that the plant grows fully. After the first year, be sure to leave a few stalks so that the plant can rejuvenate in the future.

If fully established, one plant can be harvested up to three times in one season. Stop harvesting in the fall so the plant can prepare for winter.

To dry, hang sprigs in a shady, well-ventilated area and allow them to air dry, waiting until the leaves crumble easily to store in tightly lidded jars.

Sage keeps its flavor better if stored in the freezer. Freeze leaves or stalks on a tray, then move the leaves into a zippered bag or container. Some cooks blend the leaves with oil, pack the ground mixture into ice cube trays to freeze, and then transfer the cubes to a container. See our full article on preserving herbs. Anyone who has sage planted in their garden is reputed to do well in business.

For other greens to use in your cuisine, see the Leafy Greens: Health Benefits page. Vegetable Gardener's Handbook. What do you want to read next? Herb Garden Solutions. Vegetable Garden Plans. Edible Landscaping: Selecting the Growing Herbs in the Garden. Best Flowers for Window Boxes. Planting Fall Bulbs for Spring Growing Herbs Indoors.

Perennial Flower Garden Design. Easy Perennial Flowers for Growing the Siberian Iris. Having a Vine Time with Perennial Best Ground Cover Plants. Should the blooms on sage be removed or allowed to grow?

Can garden sage be used as smudging insence? How long before I see blooms? What gets can I grow with sage. Great review on sage plant will plant several. Thanks, Andy! Good luck with your plants! Hi, Katie, Sorry for getting back you so late. Hope it helps! I have the same issue in Maryland. Mine is outside, did you ever figure out what this was? Some sage plants are edible and commonly used for culinary purposes, while other sage plants are purely ornamental.

Learn about the different types of sage plants here. This is the type of sage that is commonly grown for culinary uses. Its leaves can be used fresh or dried in cooking or brewed to make tea. This is a perennial dwarf shrub that is semi-evergreen. It grows to form clumps that grow as wide as they are tall. It produces gray-green foliage that is deeply aromatic and lavender blooms on flower spikes.

This plant grows best in full sun though it will tolerate some dappled shade. It is drought-tolerant but will perform best in a light, moist soil. These plants tend to become very woody after three or four years and will be unable to produce aromatic leaves. You will need to replace the plant at this stage if you want to use the leaves as herbs.

This is a tender perennial that will grow year-round in zones 10 and 11 but is also commonly grown as an annual in cooler regions. As you might expect from the common name, it is famed for its brilliant bright red flowers; however, newer cultivars have been bred that also come in shades of purple, pink, white, blue, and orange.

The flowers are borne on tall spikes that sit above the green foliage. Each flower is tube-shaped, with a long blooming period.

These make excellent cut flowers and can be planted in beds, borders, or containers. This vigorous annual grows in clumps of around one foot wide. It is densely branched, with showy flowers blooming in abundance from summer right through to fall. The flowers bloom on chunky erect stems, providing an abundance of color amongst the mid-green foliage.

These plants can be grown from seed, and are very easy to grow and care for. They require little maintenance, including deadheading spent flowers to encourage re-blooming.

The long-lasting flowers make good fresh cut bouquets, but they can also be dried and used for decorative purposes. This evergreen plant is a prolific bloomer, flowering from spring right through to the first frost. It produces tall flower spikes that are densely packed with intensely saturated blooms in various shades of blue. The foliage is slender and gray-green, creating an attractive shrubby base for the flower spikes to sit above. This plant brings a lovely vertical element to beds and borders and is also commonly used as a cut flower.

It can also be used as an annual plant in cooler regions, below USDA hardiness zone 8. It is enormously attractive to butterflies and other pollinators. It will grow best in soils that are kept consistently moist; however, once established, it can tolerate drought. This sage is native to California, where it grows year-round as a perennial plant. It is a medium-sized shrub, growing to a width of up to eight feet and a height of five feet. It has a rounded, bushy habit, densely packed with lance-shaped leaves that measure around two inches long.

Foliage is gray-green in color, with a slightly rough texture. They are aromatic and edible and are often used in cooking instead of common garden sage. From the middle of spring to the end of summer, the plant sends out long, arching stems, covered with clusters of tube-shaped lavender colored flowers. It is used in savory recipes and is a common ingredient in holiday stuffing. The herb is sold both fresh and dried and is available year-round. In addition to culinary use, it is used medicinally and as an ornamental plant.

Sage is an evergreen shrub part of the mint family. It has oval, dusty gray-green leaves with woody stems. Because of the fine, velveteen hair-like projections on sage leaves, they have a slightly fuzzy or fluffy appearance and cottony texture, which can make it unpleasant to eat raw. There are many varieties of sage, but the species used for culinary purposes is known as common sage, garden sage, kitchen sage, or Salvia officinalis.

Sage has a unique flavor that brings warmth and complexity to dishes. It works well when combined with other herbs and complements a variety of foods, from meat and seafood to lemon and butter.

Both the leaves, fresh and dried, as well as rubbed and powdered versions are used in recipes. Sage has a very long history and has been used since ancient times for several purposes, from warding off evil to boosting female fertility. It originated in the Mediterranean and was noted as being one of the most important herbs of that time period.

Sage was utilized by the Romans to assist in digestion and was also used to treat ulcers, wounds, and sore throats. The French turned sage into a tea, and once the Chinese tried it, they sought out the herb and traded large amounts of Chinese tea for just a fraction of the sage. In the early s AD, sage was considered an important crop because of its medicinal properties as well as lucrative trade business. Sage is an herb that retains much of its flavor once it is dried.

However, it will not have the same brightness that is found in fresh sage. Drying concentrates the flavor and can give the herb a slightly bitter taste. Therefore, when cooking, less dried herb is added to the recipe than fresh. There are two forms of dried sage: rubbed and powdered. Rubbed sage is created by rubbing the leaves together until they develop into coarse flakes. Powdered sage is a very fine texture that does not retain the flavor well, and therefore should be used in a timely manner.

The versions can all be substituted for one another, but since the potency of each is different, the measurements will have to change. Calculate that about seven leaves of fresh sage are equal to 2 teaspoons of rubbed sage or 1 teaspoon of powdered sage. Sage is a pungent herb that adds a feeling of warmth to dishes.