White sage pruning part 1 and harvesting tips! Salvia apiana
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.พ. 2025
- Here's how to prune Salvia apiana (White Sage) as well as some tips on harvesting for smudge sticks :-)!
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I can't tell you how many videos I watched that didn't give the information I needed...before I found your video. I've been doing OK with my pruning, but I've been definitely stressing it out. Thanks Jason!
Thank you so much, I'm so glad to have helped :-)!
I know this is an older video but I needed to say thank you for the straight forward video. We’re growing 2 large plants up in Winnipeg Manitoba that we wintered in the garage. They came back fully. Very useful information for pruning the flowers when ready. Thanks again.
Thank you! I'm so glad to have helped with your White Sage growing over there! Glad to hear your plants are thriving :-)!
You are so sweet and informative! Glad I stumbled across you.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate it :-)!
Thank you Jason for your sage video Cute as a button I may add. Fred from BC Canada
Awesome! Thanks! And a fellow Californian. 😁
You’re most welcome Chondro 🌿🙂!
Thank you - this is exactly the information I was looking for!
You’re most welcome 🌿🙏
Hello Jason!
I love your White Sage videos, they are very informative. Thank you so much for them.
I’m in South Africa and was able to find a White Sage plant at a nursery. I’ve had it for over a year now. Its leaves are a silvery blue color and it smells amazing! The other day I found a couple White Sage seeds I bought online ages ago and managed to sprout a couple. My seedlings are a decent size but do not look as blueish white in color as my nursery plant. Is it normal for the seedlings leaves to be greener in color? Was I perhaps sent common kitchen Sage seeds? Could I perhaps send you a photo of them side by side so you could tell me more?
Thanks in advance.
Hi Tinka! I’d wait to see if your baby sages change as they mature, I think they are usually a bit greener when smaller, but I don’t know who sent you the seeds. A good way of telling if they are white sage (Salvia apiana) is pinching the leaves and smelling them. White sage has a very distinctive smell and will smell much different than common sage (Salvia officinalis). Since you have nursery white sage, you can compare the smell to your sprouted seeds. I hope this helps👍🙂
Hello, how do you know when seeds are ready to harvest? I am waiting to prune until then.
I'd say about 2 weeks after flowers are finished blooming (at least most of the flowers). The part of the spike that has stopped blooming, that is when the seed is really developing; just give it a couple weeks. But, if you start to see birds eating the seeds, skip straight to harvest immediately. Unless you want to feed the birds with the seed. I usually find that if birds start eating the seeds, they are definitely ready. I usually wait for most of the flowers to finish blooming; once I see that, I wait a couple weeks and then harvest. I hope this helps. :-)
Your videos are great on white sage. Thanks. I killed two before I got to your videos haha 😂
You’re most welcome Rex. Best wishes on some be white sage; I’ve got this👍
@@JasonsGreenSleeves I know you had a video on cloning them. I can’t find it, am I going crazy here?
ty
wow im so grateful for you!!!god bless
Is that a chipper I hear in the background? Or a blower?🤣 Good for you for maintaining concentration. Thank you for not wasting time, being clear and concise. I subscribed. Keep up the good work! What's your professional horticultural background? I run my own very small gardening biz and have 2 certs from City College of San Francisco. Thanks again!
Thank you. I’m 13 years in the study. 5 years of schooling and 6 years at nursery. I’ve done landscape design, consulting and flower design for about 10 years. Thank you.
I also stress the importance of not pruning more than a third of the plant per season as to not over stress.
Thank You!
Loved this video, thank you. I’m in LA too and have had horrible luck with white sage. I buy these full plants and a few month later they are yellowing and bald. What am I doing wrong?
I’m not sure of the problem, but lack of soil drainage (clay) or lack of sunlight are often the problem. If you want to plant it again, I’d try early fall, once the weather has cooled a bit. Plant it where it will get full sun Anna make sure to plant it a couple inches above soil level, cover the roots with soil, but don’t bury the crown (base) of the plant. Try adding a little gypsum and humic acid to the soil if you have any; that may help too. I hope this helps 🌿
Hi! Very informative, ty! I am on the east coast and grew white sage from seed. Do you have any recommendations on how to overwinter the plant indoors? Ty!
Hi Natalia, I’ve never overwintered white sage indoors, but if I were to do it, I’d recommend really making sure to not over water it. You’ll want to water it sparingly and keep an eye out for bugs. I’d definitely use potting soil only; dirt from the ground outside will not fare well in containers or indoors. Make sure it gets as much light as you can give it indoors; you could when consider using a grow light on a timer (so the plant isn’t so confused with the season). Don’t fertilize; you don’t want it putting out much new growth indoors…new growth indoors would likely be elongated and susceptible to pests. You kind of want to suspend it as much as you can until danger of hard frost has passed. I hope this helps🙂
After harvesting leaves will plant come back next yr in michigan????
Hi Martha, when harvesting the leaves, try not to harvest more than one third of the plant in a single harvest. I'd wait a couple weeks after first harvest and then harvest again if you need to. This helps prevent over stressing your plant. You'll notice that some branches do die back after harvest; I recommend just removing and composting those. You should still have a good amount of living plant left. Your plant leaves should grow back where you pruned as well. I think Michigan may get very cold though; you might either need to grow the compact white sage in a pot and bring it indoors every winter; just put it under a grow light on a timer. Also watch out of pests on your plant. Or, you could grow it as an annual. I'm not sure how cold the part of Michigan you're in gets, but snow definitely isn't something this plant cannot well in. It's cold hardy to about 20-25 degrees fahrenheit. Smudge sticks are available online if you'd like those. If you're growing for smudging, in addition to the above suggestions, there may be other plants in your home area that you could consider:
www.ilmylunajane.com/single-post/2017/12/09/30-sacred-herbs-for-smudging-and-cleansing-purposes
I hope this helps :-).
How does cutting off the whorls keep the plant compact? Does this plant grow by rhizomes? Where I live I would like to keep them compact not for space but for keeping them protected from frost. 7 or 7b is my zone. Thanks for the video. I'd love seeds where would I get some?
When you cut back the plant, it has to push lower foliar (leaves) growth in a similar way that lavender also does. This helps to keep the plant more compact and less spindely (bare thick twisted branches). If your plants survive the frost, when the weather warms, I'd just prune back any foliage that was frost burnt (is usually falls off on it's own). This plant is usually cold hardy down to 20-25 degrees fahrenheit. This company here sells the seeds:
strictlymedicinalseeds.com/product/sage-white-salvia-apiana-seeds-organic/
Hope this helps.
@@JasonsGreenSleeves sure does. We usually mulch everything and use some row covers. I have has a lavender for 4-5 years in a planter box 18x15 and some Rosmary but so far every two years I have to buy new so I just going to keep inside or move to different spot in our garden. The hummingbird falls/guarantica is f
Growing inside a tire and so is my lemon verbena. They happy so far. Do you have a way I can take pictures and show you the plants? I have seeds from good seeds and blossom valley sage but not from strictly medicinal, they are whom I bought seedlings from they have doubled their size.
@@JasonsGreenSleeves I think we're just a little bit colder at times, 10-15° at coldest but last few years we've been about 20-25° winters the mountain area is way colder we're not close to mountains except about 30 miles
Hello sir, How many times can a white sage be collected in a year?
Hi Andrew🙂., It depends on how large your plant is and whether conditions, but seasonally you want to harvest in drier weather. Also, it depends on how much of the plant that you harvest. I would never harvest more than 1/3rd of the plants foliage/ leaves in a session. In northern California, I'd harvest mid summer after plant recovers from flower spike pruning and has put out new growth. I'd also harvest very end of summer right before fall. That would be two harvests. If you aren''t concerned about getting flowers/seed, I suppose you could harvest in late spring as long as the weather is dry; just you probably wouldn't get flowers/seed. So that would be two to three times. You can even divide those times, example, harvest from one side of plant, once that side pushes new growth, you can harvest from the other side. Never cut past the foliage into bare stem though, unless there is no foliage and you are just removing the stem entirely. I would not suggest harvesting fall through spring as you don't want to harvest in wet cool weather and there is higher water content in the leaves during these seasons; in drier weather the oils in the leaves are more concentrated for quality smudge sticks. You can collect a few leaves for tea every now and then in dry weather. Hope this helps 🙂👍🌿!
hello , do you have seeds available?
Hi Yang, I'm sorry that I don't sell seeds. This site sells them:
strictlymedicinalseeds.com/product/sage-white-salvia-apiana-seeds-organic/
I hope this helps:-).
Hey jason - is it hard or easy to propagate from cuttings?
Hi Leah, White Sage (Salvia apiana) is best rooted from cuttings in the spring right after you get your first flush of new growth. They can be finicky sometimes, but that time frame is your best bet. 👍🙂
Great question, could the flower stems be propagated? I’m thinking of trying it because I don’t have much luck with seed germination from sage so I would think it might be a better bet to try getting the stems to root instead of waiting for seeds and then sprouting. This is my first Spring with Apiana. I planted my established plants in the winter last year and they are taking off like crazy with this warmer weather now
What do you do with the long stems?
If stems are too long, cut back with clean shears, on downward angle just above leaf node, on dry day, preferably not too hot (100+ weather is a bit stressful on the plant), and remember not to prune back more than 1/3rd of the total plant size in one session. Try not to prune below growth… if branch is long and spindley, cut back to just above last couple sets of leaves, but not below that. Feel free to completely prune off any dead branches/plant tissue; it branches are dead, they won’t come back and pruning them off won’t stress the plant as those branches aren’t alive; it’s good to prune out any dead tissue. Also if your flowers are done blooming and you aren’t harvesting seed, pruning them off will redirect the plants energy into the rest of the plant. How this helps🙂🌿.