Fragrant sage is an evergreen shrub from coastal Southern California and Baja California, grown for its aromatic ashy leaves and violet-blue flowers. It thrives in dry summers and well-drained soil, and as a landscape plant it typically lives only five to ten years.
Family
Lamiaceae (Mint family)
Grows as
Perennial
Light
Full sun
Water
Water deeply but infrequently, letting soil dry out between waterings, and avoid summer watering once established.
Soil
Well-drained, sandy or gravelly soil; avoid heavy clay.
Temperature
Hardy to -7 °C (19 °F); best in mild, dry climates.
How easy
Easy
Native range
S. California, Mexico (N. Baja California)
Climate
subtropical
About
Salvia clevelandii, the fragrant sage, blue sage, Jim sage, Cleveland sage, and Cleveland's blue sage is a perennial plant of family Lamiaceae native to Southern California and northern Baja California, growing below 900 m (3,000 ft) elevation in California coastal sage and chaparral habitat. The plant was named in 1874 by Asa Gray, honoring plant collector Daniel Cleveland.
How to grow it
Salvia clevelandii is a popular Southwest US landscape plant, cultivated since the 1940s. Plants prefer dry summers, good drainage, and tolerate full sun in cooler areas. As a landscape plant they have a relatively short life span of five to ten years. They are hardy to −7 °C (19 °F).
Cultivars and hybrids include:
Where it grows
Salvia clevelandii is found throughout portions of Southern California and northwestern Baja California, in chaparral and coastal sage scrub. It is distributed along the coast of San Diego County, the Peninsular Ranges of San Diego and Orange counties, and in northwestern Baja California, from the border to the northern portion of the central desert in the southern Sierra de San Pedro Martir.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Salvia clevelandii 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.