How to Plant, Grow, and Care for White Sage
White sage (Salvia apiana) is used for cooking, medicinal use, and smudging. Learn exactly how to grow, cultivate, and harvest in this guide by Kevin Espiritu.
Contents
If there’s any herb that has a long and storied history, it’s white sage (Salvia apiana). Used heavily amongst California tribal people for centuries, this plant has many names given by the tribes who use it.
The Tongva or Gabrielino tribe traditionally called it kasiile and found it on hills around the area now known as Los Angeles. A similar pronunciation, qas’ily, was used by the Chumash people who lived along the current Santa Barbara coastline. The inland Luiseno tribe referred to this plant as qaashil. To Kumeyaay people who were in the area around modern-day San Diego, it was known as shlhtaay. Viewed as a sacred plant, it is traditionally used for food, medicine, and many other purposes.
While an individual Salvia apiana plant can survive for many years in the wild, most people find it harder to grow in the garden. However, it is a beautiful and worthwhile plant to have on hand.
Read on for an in-depth gardener’s guide to this ancient herb. While we’re at it, we’ll discuss the best way to grow this plant ornamentally and for collecting smudging herbs!
Overview
Plant Type
Perennial Herb
Family
Lamiaceae
Genus
Salvia
Species
Salvia apiana
|
Native Area
Southern California and parts of northern Mexico
Exposure
Full Sun
Height
3-6′
Watering Requirements
Low
|
Pests & Diseases
Aphids, whiteflies, mites, powdery mildew, rust, root rot
Maintenance
Moderate
Soil Type
Sandy
Hardiness Zone
8-11
|
What Is White Sage?
Salvia apiana, often called California white sage, is a large perennial desert plant. It grows in spiky clusters in sandier soils, often in foothill areas of southern California and down into Mexico. Its name comes from the leaves, which have a grey-green tinge that becomes greyish-white when dried.
In the wild, white sage grows to six feet tall and many feet in diameter. Its long stems come from a central root mass and last one growing season before drying and dying back. As a desert plant, it likes hot, dry conditions.
It’s become a popular choice for drought-tolerant gardens and can be easily incorporated amongst other low-water plants. If you’re trying to conserve water, this is the perfect plant for you!
History & Uses
Before we can discuss the uses of white sage amongst tribes, it’s important to realize that it is not the only type of sage used traditionally by tribal people. In fact, the use of white sage was only truly common traditionally amongst the tribes in the desert southwest, since it did not grow elsewhere.
A Diversity Of Sages
Amongst Californian peoples, white sage is occasionally referred to as grandfather sage, as it grows to be much larger in its elder form than any of the other sages. Salvia melifera (black sage) and Salvia officianalis (garden sage or culinary sage) are common throughout California and Mexico too.
Black sage has a more acrid and chapparal-like scent. It was traditionally used in specific ceremonies, while white sage is used for day-to-day use. The two look similar, although black sage tends to be shorter and more grey than white when dried.
Salvia vs. Artemisia
There are plants referred to as sage which aren’t sages at all. The two most common are Artemisia cana (silver sagebrush, Badlands sage, or South Dakota sage) and Artemisia tridentata (big sagebrush, desert sage, mountain sage, and many other names).
Artemisia cana is occasionally called Sundance sage because it is widely used by the Lakota and other tribes as part of the Sundance ceremony. This plant grows in the northern plains area of the United States and is hard to find outside of that region. Its leaves are narrower than California white sage and have a distinctly different aroma.
Artemisia tridentata is incredibly widespread, both in tribal use and growing area. This little-leafed plant is used similarly to Salvia apiana ceremonially, but its scent is different. It is found across the western half of the United States in the wild.
There is one other Artemisia species that should be noted here: the white sagebrush, Artemisia ludoviciana. It grows in similar environments to Salvia apiana, and it looks quite similar. However, it can grow in partial shade instead of full shade. This plant’s aroma is more like the dusty sage scent of Artemisia tridentata. It’s used medicinally by tribal people.
Smudging or Smoke Cleansing
White sage is traditionally used for ceremonial or medicinal purposes. The most well-known of these uses is burning it to release its fragrant smoke. While the term “smudging” is often applied to this process, the origin of that term actually comes from medieval Europe. A more accurate term is smoke cleansing.
The smoke produced has traditionally been used to purify or cleanse objects. It is also used to purify or cleanse people in a similar fashion. Tribal spiritual leaders might have special fans or feathers that they use for this purpose, depending on the specific tribe’s religious views.
While it is easiest to bundle the leaves and stems together and dry them for this purpose, they can also be burned individually. Crumbled or powdered leaves can be burned as powdered incense too.
The smoke is used in many other traditional ceremonies. Ohlone people use it as part of the preparation for and during their bear dance, for example. The Cahuilla bird singers often use it before they sing the traditional songs. It is an integral part of many Californian tribal religions. Uses like these tend to be overshadowed in the public eye by the popularity of smudging with white sage for its cleansing purpose.
Food and Medicine
Traditionally, white sage leaves were chewed by Californian tribes to freshen the breath and to stave off thirst on hot days before other modern methods were available. This might have been due to the high eucalyptol content in the leaves, which leaves a refreshing, almost minty coolness in the mouth after chewing.
That same eucalyptol content made it extremely helpful during times of sickness for clearing congestion. A common practice was to boil sage leaves for five to ten minutes in a small amount of water, then to breathe the steam from the container. This would help relieve congestion and ease cold symptoms.
Sage leaves and stems were boiled in water to produce a strong-scented liquid that would be used as a sort of shampoo and body wash. This not only eliminated body odors, but provided a slight antibacterial effect which helped keep the skin free from bacterial problems.
The leaves were used as a spice in cooking, but also offered medicinal value as a poultice or a tincture. The seeds were gathered and powdered along with maize and other seeds and spices to form pinole, a flour-like substance that was an ingredient in many staple foods for tribal people.
Many of these traditional practices are still in use to this day, although most tribal members make use of the advances of modern medicine and contemporary products as well as their traditional methods.
Planting
Seed is the most common way to grow new plants. However, white sage seeds are notoriously bad at germinating. It’s not uncommon to have a germination rate of 20-30%. Because of this, you will need to plant far more seeds than you expect to eventually plant out.
When planting your seeds in the spring, it’s easiest to start white sage in seed starting trays or pots rather than directly seeding it.
Sprinkle your seeds across the surface of the soil and mist them with a water bottle. Keep your seeds in a location with temperatures at 70 to 85°F (21-29°C). Provide full light from a grow light if growing indoors, or place in direct sun.
Keep the soil lightly moistened initially for young plants. Once your plants have started to grow, water no more than once a week, but only if the soil feels dry.
This plant can grow to reach heights of six feet tall, and can easily spread out over three to four feet or even wider. Because of this, I advise not planting your plants closer than two feet. They need room for the roots to expand.
How to Grow
Growing white sage can be tricky for many gardeners because it goes against what we’re all accustomed to. In the wild, Salvia apiana is a desert plant, accustomed to long spans of time between watering and extremely hot conditions. These are things we tend to forget about when we’re planting it! But it’s not impossible to grow white sage, and it’s really worth maintaining.
Light
Salvia apiana absolutely demands full sun. It does not perform well in shaded conditions at all. Pick the hottest and sunniest part of your yard to plant your white sage in. It will thank you for it.
Water
Once white sage is established, it does extremely well in dry conditions. It puts down deep taproots to search for its own water supply.
For the first year, water once per week. You do not need more than an inch of water per week. Gradually reduce the watering over time as the plant’s root system becomes established.
Once a white sage plant has been in place for a year or two, it’s likely going to find all of the water it needs on its own. You can choose to water it sparingly during periods of drought or in extremely hot weather. But once established, it shouldn’t need much water, if any at all.
Soil
Sandy soils that are extremely well-draining are preferred. Think of the natural soil makeup of a foothill in the southern California region: dusty, sandy soil with lots of decomposing granite. That’s the ideal soil for your white sage plant. If this doesn’t describe the soil in your region, opt for a cactus growing soil blend.
If you have richer soils, it can tolerate those, but be sure they’re extremely well-draining as sage hates soggy soil.
Temperature
White sage does not like cold weather conditions. If your winter drops below 20°F (-7°C) consistently, you may have difficulties growing it. It’s best to transplant your sage and take it indoors for the winter, providing plenty of light from a grow light.
Fertilizer
White sage doesn’t need fertilizing. In fact, it actually prefers low-nutrient soils as an adult plant.
If you want to give young plants a gentle kick-start, side-dress around your plants with a light coat of spent mushroom compost. This provides a tiny amount of extra nitrogen to help spur plant growth, but won’t overwhelm your plants.
Propagation
White sage can be propagated in two ways: from seed or cuttings.
If you have an established white sage plant at least a couple of years old, take a young cutting and try to coax it to take root. This has a low success rate of around 20%. However, if finding seeds is difficult in your area, getting a cutting from someone with an established plant may be easier.
Make a mix of equal parts perlite, medium-grained sand, and seed-starting compost. Lightly moisten the mix and place it into pots.
Take five-inch cuttings from the top of an established sage plant. Select cuttings with newly-forming leaves at the top, and cut just above a leaf node. Dip your cut end into water, then into a rooting powder. Plant with the lowest set of leaf nodes about half an inch beneath the soil’s surface.
Until your cutting takes root, keep it in a partly shaded location on top of a heat mat. The warmth will help promote root growth. Only water when the soil feels dry just below the surface near the cutting.
After 4-6 weeks, gently tug on the cutting to see if there’s any resistance. If there is, it has formed roots. Keep your plants in partial shade for a few more weeks, then carefully transplant them into a pot of well-draining, sandy garden soil or cactus blend.
Transplanting and Repotting
Transplanting a white sage plant is best done in the fall, as the fall through early spring months are the months when white sage growth tends to happen.
Your sage plant should have at least two to four sets of true leaves, but I actually prefer to start seeds in the spring for plants I plan to transplant in the fall, as it gives them more time to develop.
To transplant, prepare your bed with a sandy, well-draining growing medium or cactus potting blend. Place your white sage plant in the ground at the same depth it was in the pot. Gently open up the base of the roots if they’ve gotten rootbound.
If you’re replanting white sage in a larger pot, the process is essentially the same as transplanting. Try not to put multiple plants any closer together than about 18 inches. Remember, white sage can grow large when it’s in the ground, but it’s restricted when it’s in a pot.
Traditional Growing Methods
Tribal people would harvest the seeds of the white sage by cutting off the dried seed pods and putting them into a pottery container, then tightly closing or covering the top. They would then shake the pot to cause the seeds to break free of their pods. Once this was done, they could pour the seed and pod mixture onto a piece of cloth or leather, remove larger bits of pod, and lightly blow the chaff away.
Any seeds for replanting would be taken out to a place where people had been harvesting sage. After offering thanks to the plants for their bounty, a small handful of seeds would be cupped between the sower’s hands and rubbed together. This lightly abraded the surface of the seeds to allow them to take on water during the next rain.
The seeds would then be broadcast across the area and left to sprout. While it’s likely that seeds would be carried off by wildlife, enough seeds would sprout to keep the plants growing in the area.
Harvesting
There are a few tricks to keep this plant around, both in storage and in the world around us. Read on to learn when and how you should harvest your sage, how to dry and store it properly, and how to make sure we don’t lose it forever.
When To Harvest White Sage
Plants should not be harvested until they are at least a couple years old. This ensured that the plant would be able to handle the trimmings without adverse reactions.
Traditionally, harvests would take place at different times of year depending on what the plant was to be used for.
If the plant was meant for cleansing smoke, it would be harvested after a period of drier conditions. This allowed the plant to use up much of its water stored in its leaves, making the oils in the leaves more potent.
For medicinal or food purposes, white sage could be harvested at any time of year. Drier conditions make more pungent food herbs or result in stronger medicines, where wetter conditions tend to mellow these out and might require larger amounts to be harvested.
How To Harvest White Sage
It is important to cut white sage cleanly with a pair of bypass pruners or snips. Try to avoid crushing the stems, as that can lead to disease.
Never take more than a third of any plant at a given time, as that can cause the plant to go into shock. Only cut from the younger, fresher plant tips, leaving the older and woodier stems intact. Cut just above a leaf node, as that will cause the branch below to send out new branch growth from the nodes and bush out more.
When you are harvesting your sage, you select a day when it has not been raining. Harvest at mid-day or in the early afternoon when morning dew has already evaporated. This ensures your leaves will be dry at the time of harvest.
To harvest white sage seeds, wait until the plants have flowered and the flowers are beginning to dry. Take paper bags and put them carefully over the flower stalk, using a rubber band to secure them in place. Then allow them to continue to dry. Occasionally shake the bag to see if you hear rattling inside. Once you do, the petals are falling off, and you can cut the stalk just below the bag and remove it. Shake the bag to free the seeds from their pods.
Storing
Once you have harvested your sage, it is essential to dry it quickly. There are two ways to do this: either loose, or in bundles.
Loose sage leaves can be dried simply by laying them out on a mesh screen in an area with low humidity and low light. You should be able to easily crumble a leaf between your fingertips when it is dry. Store loose leaf sage in an airtight storage container. You can add a moisture-absorbing dessicant packet if you would like to keep it dry.
To create sage bundles, be sure that your harvested sage leaves are completely dry to the touch. Take multiple stems of sage and group them together, tying a piece of cotton string around the stem ends to gather them together. Then, grasp the stem end with one hand, and carefully gather the leaves up against the stems with the leaf ends pointing towards the top of the bundle.
Wrap your string around the bundle multiple times from base to tip to secure the leaves in place, finishing by tying off the string at the stem end. Leave plenty of extra string to create a loop, and hang your sage bundles in a dry, dark location to completely dry out. It’s helpful if you can have a fan lightly blowing on them to reduce the moisture in the bundles.
Place your dried sage bundles in a box for storage. Cardboard is good for this purpose, as it can absorb any residual moisture the bundles might have.
Do not use heat to speed your sage drying process. This will give it an unusual and unpleasant aroma. Dehydrators, ovens, all of those methods are not good for this plant.
Harvesting Wild White Sage
Since white sage has become extremely popular for smudging purposes, there’s been an ever-increasing number of people picking it in the wild. This is not always people gathering it for personal use. Often, it’s being collected for resale purposes, and there is no effort at reseeding the plants or encouraging their continued growth.
As a result, Salvia apiana is rapidly becoming an endangered species in its natural environment. Because of this, I do not recommend wild-harvesting white sage if you can avoid doing so. Since it naturally flourishes in areas where it’s also extremely popular, this has depleted stands of white sage to the point where it’s becoming difficult to find in unprotected areas.
I really recommend opting to take a few cuttings or seed pods and growing it yourself. Once your plant is established, you will have a never-ending source of sage at your disposal!
Common Problems
While I’ve gone over the most common problems already in the above sections, there are still a few other things to be aware of.
Growing Problems
Since white sage is indigenous to southern California, it’s more difficult to grow it in regions where the weather gets colder. Anywhere there are regular temperatures below freezing, you may find your plant suffering.
Younger white sage plants should be carefully dug up and transferred into a pot during those cold weather months. Be sure to keep it in a warm location with a grow light to provide it with all the light it needs.
Older, established sage plants, especially large ones, are much more difficult to move. Once your sage plant is over three years old, chances are you’re not going to want to try to transplant it anymore so you don’t risk transplant stress. At this point, it’s a good idea to mound sand up in a thick pile over the base of the stems of the plant. While you may suffer some stem damage, keeping the base warm should allow the plant to regrow later.
Pests
Aphids will thrive on sage plants. You can use neem oil to repel these pests and keep them at bay. However, if you’re planning to harvest for burning purposes, avoid using neem oil for seven to ten days before harvest.
Whiteflies are another pest that can wreak havoc on your white sage. These also like to suck the plant sap from the sage leaves. Thankfully, the same neem oil you’re using to prevent aphids will also prevent these pests, both inside a greenhouse or outside.
The red and black flat mite (Brevipalpus phoenecis) is another sap-sucking pest that could infect your sage, as is the omnivorous flat mite (Brevipalpus californicus). Both of these are considered ‘false spider mites’, and they can cause browning or reddening of leaves, patchy spotting of leaves, and other issues. Neem oil is also effective against these, too!
And, of course, there’s always the spider mite itself. While these are less common on white sage, they still can take up residence, especially during the drier months of the year. One more time: use the neem oil!
Diseases
The most prevalent disease of white sage is powdery mildew. Since sage likes hot conditions, any humidity with heat can spawn an outbreak, along with moisture that remains on the leaves. Thankfully, the same neem oil that will defend your plant against pests is a good preventative for powdery mildew as well.
Rust is another disease that can impact your sage. The Puccinia and Uromyces species are particularly risky. These start out as yellowish or whitish spots on the top of your leaves, but the underside of leaves may develop orangish rust in the same locations. Remove any affected material as soon as you notice it, and avoid watering the leaves of the plant. Ensure it has plenty of airflow to allow leaves to dry out.
Root rot is another problem that white sage is susceptible to. This is usually caused by one of a number of fungal agents active in overly wet soil. To prevent root rot issues, simply don’t overwater.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are my white sage leaves turning red?
White sage leaves and stems turn red, purple, or mauve in drought stress. This actually is not a problem for the plant, as it will continue to survive even if the lower leaves and stems are starting to redden. If you start to see reddening leaves, give the plant a little assistance with a light drizzle of water at the base of the sage. That should perk it right back up.
How much sage can I get off one plant?
This is a tricky question to answer because it depends on the size of your plant and how long you’ve been trimming it to encourage more branching out. Older, heavily-branched sage plants may produce quite a lot of sage, but younger plants may only produce a couple of bundles’ worth. Plants under a year shouldn’t be trimmed. In the second year, be careful not to take too much.