What is the purple sage?
Purple Sage is a cultivated variety called cultivar, a conventional garden sage. This variety has been cultivated for its purple leaves and is commonly used as an ornamental plant. The purple sage, as well as the ordinary garden sage, is an edible culinary herb. The name of its species is salvia officinalis and it is in the family of Lamiaceae or Mint.
This plant can be grown as ornamental for adding the color of the leaves to the borders, rock gardens and sunny permanent beds. In the herb garden, Purple Sage can be planted together with or instead of an ordinary sage. This sage cultivar makes an attractive edible border around herbal gardens and vegetable gardens. Flowers attract butterflies and beneficial insects.
Purple Sage grows 1 to 2 feet (about 30 to 60 cm) tall, with a spread of 1 to 1.5 feet (about 30 to 45 cm) wide. This small shrub is a herb perennial. As the plants ripen, they develop a wooden stem. The purple sage survives winter temperatures as low as -10 to 0 ° F (-23 to -17 ° C).
Small lavender blue flowers appear in spring. New leaves grow purple and slowly mature on silver sheer because it ripens during the season. Plants often have a mixture of silver and purple leaves because new growth continues during the season.
This plant of tolerant drought grows best in full sun and dry, rocky soil conditions or sandy clay. The purple sage can tolerate a light shade, but in full shade grows badly. Wet, damp or waterlogged soils can cause purple sage rot.
plants should be distributed 1 to 2 feet (about 30 to 60 cm) apart. In areas where winter temperatures fall below the minimum for this sage cultivar, it can be grown as an annual. As the plants ripen, the woods get on wood. This can be prevented from replacing plants every three to four years.
New plants can be triggered from seeds, rooted cuttings, layering or be purchased in a kindergarten. They should be planted in the spring after the last date of frost. The purple sage is cold, but new fine plants used for the conditions in the greenhouse are sensitive to spring frosts.
Sage can be continuously harvested during the growing season by removing several leaves from each plant. Fragrant leaves of the plant have many culinary uses. They can be dried for storage or fresh in soups, meat, tea and other dishes.