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The Color and Fragrance of Culinary Sages
The word sage usually brings to mind a muted gray-green tone, a color that the fashion industry made popular years ago, which has a resurgence in popularity now and then. I believe the fashion industry needs to wake up and smell the sage in the garden. Sage does not mean just gray-green anymore. Every year I find a new color or scent of foliage from cultivars of salvias to place in my garden. I could do a garden with sage and have a variety of foliage colors and scents without even considering their flowers. However, the flowers of many of the ornamental salvias are beautiful. To walk through a sage garden with its earthy smells would be a delight to our senses of smell, touch and sight.
The genus Salvia includes over 900 species of aromatic annuals, biennials and perennials as well as many evergreen shrubs. Many are winter hardy in the PNW, and a number of the more tender ones are worthy enough to be wintered over in the greenhouse. One of my favorite tender ones that I winter over in the greenhouse, Honeydew Melon Sage, has foliage with a fragrance that gives it its name. Another sage with a fruity fragrance is Salvia elegans 'Scarlet Pineapple' Pineapple' that has foliage with the scent of pineapple. As its name indicates, the flowers are scarlet red.
Salvia officinalis
Salvia officinalis, a native of the Mediterranean region, grows well in hot, sunny, and well-drained soils. As an herb, it is normally grown for culinary use, although the Greeks and Romans used it medicinally. Salvia comes from the Latin word, salvus meaning safe, in reference to its medicinal properties. In my garden, it serves as an evergreen shrub used for cooking as well as an ornamental addition to the garden.
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S. officinalis 'Icterina' with its green and gold variegated leaves edges a walkway in my back garden. Planted next to Calluna vulgaris 'Robert Chapman' and Thymus citriodorus (Lemon thyme), the threesome compliment each other in foliage. At their feet, carpeting the ground, is Thymus pseudolanuginosus (Woolly thyme). In the same garden bed grows Erica arborea 'Estrella Gold', which ties in with the gold and green leaves of S. 'Icterina'. I am adding Uncinia unciniata (Red New Zealand sedge) to this grouping. I believe the addition of the grassy, bronze colored foliage, that turns orange-red in winter, will unify the garden in color even further. The combination will be of year round interest when it is complete.
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S. 'Purpurascens' is another member of this group with outstanding foliage. Its purple-gray leaves add color year round to the herb or ornamental garden. Planted with S. 'Tricolor' (left photo) the two compliment each other. Neither would ever have to bloom and they would add lots of color just with their foliage alone.
These are just a few of many wonderful culinary salvias that will do well in your Northwest garden. Add these to your kitchen garden or the ornamental garden and enjoy the beautiful and aromatic varieties of sage.
Debra Teachout-Teashon
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