Salvia officinalis
Sage
Common names: Common sage, Garden sage
At a glance
- Light
- Full sun
- Spacing
- 40 cm, rows 50 cm
- Lifespan
- Perennial
- Sowing
- Apr–May
- Harvest
- May–Sep
- Hardiness
- Hardy down to −18 °C
- Water need
- Low
Photo: Kurt Stüber [1] · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source
Description
Common sage is a hardy subshrub with velvety grey leaves and a spicy, tart aroma that suits saltimbocca, pasta and hearty dishes. It has a long tradition in the kitchen and as an infusion; in the bed its scent keeps the cabbage white butterfly and the carrot fly away.
Care instructions
Plant it in a fully sunny spot with free-draining, calcareous soil; sage copes well with drought and needs hardly any extra water. Cut it back hard every spring in March so it stays bushy and does not go woody from below. Harvest the leaves at their most aromatic shortly before flowering on a dry morning.
The care notes were machine-translated from German.
Garden year
SowingApr–May
HarvestMay–Sep
Germination
- Soil temperature
- from 12 °C, ideally 20 °C
- Days to sprout
- 10 to 21 days
- Light
- Sprouts in light or dark
- Sowing depth
- 0.5 cm
- How to start
- Start indoors, then plant out
Soil & site
Soil pH
Soil type
sandy, well-drained, lime-loving, lean, dry
Sage comes from the Mediterranean and needs a lean, well-drained soil without waterlogging. Chalky and rather dry is ideal. Loosen heavy, loamy soils with sand or fine grit; too much humus and nitrogen weaken the aroma and winter hardiness.
Feeding
Light feeder
Months
Mar–Apr
In spring (March/April), work a thin layer of mature compost in shallowly around the plant. On very lean sandy soils you can also work in some horn shavings at the surface. Once a year is quite enough; too much nitrogen dilutes the aroma and encourages soft shoots that are prone to frost damage.
Overwintering
Common sage generally gets through winter in the lowlands of Germany, Austria and Switzerland in the bed without special protection. A free-draining soil matters more than frost, because winter wet harms the roots more than cold does. Cut it back only in spring, and cover young or exposed plants as well as variegated-leaved varieties with some leaves or brushwood; move containers against the house wall out of the wind, wrap them in fleece and stand them on a wooden base.
Propagation
Methods
- Cuttings
- Layering
- From seed
- Division
The most reliable way to propagate sage is by cuttings: from the end of April to early June, cut semi-ripe shoot tips 6 to 10 cm long, neither completely soft nor already fully woody. Remove the leaves from the lower third and insert the cuttings into moist, low-nutrient seed compost. Place them in a bright spot, but out of direct midday sun. After 3 to 5 weeks, when new shoots appear, roots have formed and you can pot on the young plants.
For layering, choose a long, flexible shoot from the edge of the shrub in summer, press the middle of it onto the ground in a shallow trench, cover it with soil and weigh it down with a stone. The shoot tip sticks out. The shoot stays connected to the mother plant and is supplied through it. After a few weeks roots have formed and you can detach it.
Sowing works from March on a windowsill or directly outdoors in May (needs light to germinate, press down only lightly, do not cover; better to mist than to water). Germination takes 2 to 3 weeks. Collect your own seed from ripe flower heads in autumn in dry weather and store it dry. Note: many coloured cultivars (e.g. ‘Purpurascens’) do not come true from seed, as the offspring vary.
Division is recommended for older plants that have thinned out in the centre: dig up the clump in early spring, divide it with two garden forks or a sharp spade and replant the vigorous outer parts with enough root mass. Each piece needs several buds.
Companion planting
Good neighbors
nightshade family (Solanaceae)
particularly well establishedYou will find that basil next to tomato and pepper improves taste and keeps whiteflies and aphids away.
For example PotatoTomatoSweet pepperCocktail tomatoEggplantCape gooseberry and 14 more species in the catalogue
Source: classic companion planting (DACH-Gartenpraxis)
cabbage family (Brassicaceae)
You will notice that the intense scent of basil, thyme, and others confuses the cabbage whitefly and keeps it away from the cabbage family.
For example KohlrabiRadishKalebroccolicauliflowerBrussels sprout and 40 more species in the catalogue
Source: bio-gardening intercropping practice
Rather not
Companion planting is partly traditional gardening lore. Where the reason is known, it is given.
Some of these explanations were machine-translated.
For your garden
Grow Sage yourself
Gartenkern tells you when frost is coming, when to sow and when to harvest, for your location.
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