All sages prefer average, well-drained garden soil and most tolerate drought rather well. The named varieties are best propagated by stem cuttings in early summer, before they flower. They are easy to grow from collected or purchased seeds, but the offspring won’t be identical to the parent.
Purple sage is a free-flowering plant with dark-colored blossoms that contrast pleasantly with most other shades. Salvia x sylvestris is often sold as (and is very similar to) Salvia x superba. Both are choice hybrids that make outstanding garden plants. Both have narrow, dark blue to purple flower spikes on stems that grow from 18 to 36 inches tall, depending on the variety. The foliage is a pleasing gray-green and clothes the well-branched stems. There is a great deal of confusion in catalogs about the correct names for these plants—they hybridize so readily that growers are sometimes not sure what they have.
Sage is drought tolerant and performs well both in cool northern climates and in hot ones. In the Deep South, it prefers part shade; tall varieties have a tendency to lose their tidy habit in part shade, though.
ZONES: 4–10
BLOOM TIME: Summer
LIGHT: Full sun
HEIGHT: 18–36 inches
INTEREST: Rich, dark bluish violet spikes on compact, well-behaved plants