Hummingbird Sage: How to Care for Hummingbird Sage Plants

Hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea), or pitcher sage, is an evergreen California native plant with tall flower stalks where magenta flower color contrasts with bright green leaves and bracts. The flower spikes arise from a woody base of rhizomes—these spread underground to round out the foliage, stretching up to three feet across per bush. The plant’s flowering stems sprout whorls of pinkish to red flowers straight up the stalk, which can grow two or three feet tall.

A member of the Lamiaceae or mint family, hummingbird sage often grows at low elevation near sea level. Its most prominent home is the California coastline from the San Francisco Bay Area to Orange County, where it peppers the coast and live oak woodlands alike. Outside of its natural habitat, gardeners use hummingbird sage to provide ample ground cover for smaller growths. Their pleasant scent is attractive to pollinators beyond just hummingbirds. These plants can be good additions to a butterfly garden as well.

Hummingbird sage shrubs are easy to care for in USDA Hardiness Zones 8–11, but they still require the right conditions and routine maintenance. Here’s how to take care of this evergreen:

1. 1. Address their water needs. These plants are very drought-tolerant due to their California origins. While they can survive with low water, you should still provide them with enough water to keep their soil a tad moist throughout the early summer. You can let up on watering completely in late summer and early fall. For their first year, consider treating them to a little more water than you would normally to help their growth.
2. 2. Give them part light, part shade. Hummingbird sage plants grow just fine under the light of the full sun in the wild, so there’s no issue if you treat them to the same conditions in your garden. Still, they can benefit from partial shade, too.
3. 3. Keep an eye out for pests and diseases. Most hummingbird sage cultivars and varieties withstand attacks by both pests and disease relatively well. They’re naturally deer-resistant and don’t attract that many insect nuisances. If your plants do harbor unwanted guests, you can easily remove them with a homemade or store-bought insecticide, such as neem oil. If you notice any powdery mildew on your plants, remove the affected areas before the problem spreads and do your best to moderate your water usage until the plants recover.
4. 4. Propagate when appropriate. You can multiply your hummingbird sages by dividing up their rhizomes carefully and transplanting them in different sections of your garden. This will help you provide more ground cover to other plants that might benefit from the shade they create. You can also use the plant’s seeds if you’d prefer to grow them from scratch.
5. 5. Prune the sage if you wish. These plant types grow relatively tall for shrubs, so you can always trim down areas to keep them from getting too unwieldy. Deadhead the pink flowers before winter each year if you would like to keep the plants looking tidy after each growing season.
6. 6. Treat them to the right soil. These plants do best with a soil pH level of around 5.0–7.0. Ensure the soil drains efficiently as these plants would rather deal with dryness than oversaturation by water.

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