Plant Some Gray-Green Glory by Kate Nelson
Scripps Howard News Service
No relative to the desert brush, velvety sage grows well, looks beautiful and has myriad uses.
They don't call it sage for nothing. Salvia officinalis could be the smartest plant in your yard. Also known as garden sage and culinary sage, this yummy and medicinal herb belongs to the mint family, boasting about 800 members. That bloodline sets it apart from the sagebrush dotting the desert. Those scrubby bushes are artemesias, whose leaves taste suspiciously like insect repellent.
By contrast, the grayish-green, velvety leaves of S. officinalis highlight the trademark flavors of turkey roasts and sausages--a sadly narrow celebration of their aromatic oomph.
Sage is so well-adapted to the Southwestern climate that if you plant some, you'll harvest a ton. What should you do with the bounty? Add it to mashed potatoes, mix it into bread dough, fry it up for a crispy side dish, steep it in vinegar, blend it with cheese, sprinkle it onto salads, stew it with soup.
For centuries, lotions and potions made from sage have also soothed tummies, whitened teeth, darkened hair, controlled dandruff, treated sores and soothed nerves.
Set a few leaves in boiling water and you'll get an age-old spring tonic--although more than two cups a day of a strong infusion could be harmful to pregnant women, nursing mothers and epileptics.
One of the essential oils in sage is thujone, once used to make absinthe, a legendary and sometimes deadly liqueur. Left to cook or steep, however, sage will lose most of its thujone.
Popular varieties for New Mexico gardens include Berggarten, purple and tricolor sage. In recent years, other types have popped up at local nurseries, including pineapple sage and golden sage.
Sage is native to Mediterranean regions, so some varieties can't withstand the coldest spots of a New Mexico winter. If the plant is rated for USDA Zone 7, you're well-advised to dig it up in the fall and bring it indoors in a pot.
In the spring, you can start all varieties from seed indoors. Barely cover the seeds with a potting medium and transplant the seedlings into individual pots as soon as a second set of leaves appears.
Outdoors, plants should be spaced 18 inches apart. That might seem awfully barren, but the plants can stretch three feet tall and wide. Sage also does well in containers ... if the pots are big enough to accommodate the growth.
Sage doesn't need an abundance of water, likes hot temperatures and resists most pests and diseases. Its only drawback is a tendency to get leggy and woody after a few years and even die off in five years. To extend its life, trim it back and start new plants by rooting the cuttings.
Each spring, spikes of blue, white, purple and red flowers will shoot up. Not only do the blossoms attract hummingbirds and butterflies, but they add a charming and pungent tone to cut-flower arrangements.
You can harvest leaves from this evergreen all year long, although the flavor is best in early spring before the plant sets its flowers.
To dry leaves, pull them from the stems and set them on a wire rack or a tray lined with ink-free paper. Keep away from heat and sunlight, stir once a day and, within a few days, you can bottle up the harvest.
The rest of the year, tie a small sprig of sage into the ribbons of a present or crumble the leaves into a sachet to deter bugs from your linens. And then you can make a throat gargle, and a hair tonic, and an antiseptic salve, and a digestif and a deodorant... .
For a plant to have that many uses and be so free of horticultural fuss, it must be sage.
(Kate Nelson is a master gardener who writes for The Albuquerque Tribune. Send e-mail to knelson@abqtrib.com.)
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