Sand sagebrush is a native North American shrub of the daisy family that grows up to about 1.5 m tall with fine, threadlike grey-green leaves. It thrives in deep, sandy, well-drained soils and is valued for preventing erosion.
Family
Asteraceae (Daisy family)
Grows as
Shrub
Light
Full sun
Water
Water deeply but infrequently, letting the soil dry out fully between waterings; established plants need little.
Soil
Deep, sandy, very well-drained soil; tolerates poor soils.
Temperature
Hardy in cold winters and hot summers; protect young plants from prolonged frost.
How easy
Easy
Native range
WC. & C. U.S.A. to NE. Mexico
Climate
temperate
About
Artemisia filifolia, known by common names including sand sagebrush, sand sage and sandhill sage, is a species of flowering plant in the aster family. It is native to North America, where it occurs from Nevada east to South Dakota and from there south to Arizona, Chihuahua, and Texas.
Where it grows
Artemisia filifolia is a dominant species across much of the west-central United States, particularly in areas where the substrate is a deep, sandy soil. It is an indicator of sandy soils. It is efficient for preventing erosion on such soils. It is common in parts of the Great Plains, where it is a dominant component of prairie, grassland, and shrubland ecosystems alongside grasses such as sand bluestem, grama grasses, sand reedgrass, little bluestem, and sand dropseed. Some regions dominated by this sagebrush include the occurrences of the sandsage prairie from Nebraska to central Texas, various river systems in eastern Colorado and Kansas, the sandhills and mixed-grass prairies of Colorado, and parts of southeastern Wyoming. In Texas, it is common in the Trans-Pecos region, where it grows with honey mesquite, and many other areas in the state where it grows with sand shinnery oak.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Artemisia filifolia by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.