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Beautiful, strong herbs for NZ gardeners and herbalists of all levels

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Salvia Show Off

June 2, 2019 By SandRa Timmins Leave a Comment

The Salvia genus is where we find all our sages and it’s very easy to fall in love with this group of plants from the mint family. Take mind, it is huuge! So many members, ranging from annuals to perennials, medicinal, culinary, hallucinatory and ornamental. Something for everyone!

It’s a wet miserable often hailing day today. But I have a stash of photos put away here, so I’d like to introduce you to my wee collection, it’s by no means huge but I’m proud of it!

Let’s start with Salvia officinalis, common sage…

He that would live for aye
Should eat sage in May.
OLD ENGLISH SAYING
Common sage, Salvia officinalis
Common sage, Salvia officinalis

Salvia officinalis is a wonderful herb if not an essential herb to have on hand. Apart from its culinary uses I use it a lot in winter for sore throats, either as a tea/infusion or you can make a decoction and use it as a gargle. The volatile oils sooth the mucous membranes, useful for the inflammation of mouth, gums, tongue, throat and tonsils. Sage can also help women at various stages of their life; due to the tannins and estrogenic substances found in sage, taking the infusion frquently can help dry up mothers milk, lessen excessive bleeding during menses and reduce sweating during perimenopausal time. DO NOT TAKE SAGE MEDICINALLY WHEN PREGNANT. There are many other uses, but these are the ones that I have used sage for.

Salvia purpurea, can be used just like Salvia officinalis. Salvia Icterina, varigated sage, is more ornamental but can be used culinarily in a pinch as can the beautiful tri-coloured sage.

Purple sage, Salvia purpurea
Purple sage, Salvia purpurea
Varigated sage, Salvia icterina
Varigated sage, Salvia icterina
Tri coloured sage
Tri coloured sage

Unfortunately I must admit that both my varigated and tri-coloured sages did not survive the transition when we moved here over a year ago, very sad.

Next in the line up is the all time most popular herb that I sell.. Salvia apiana, White sage…

Salvia apiana, white sage
Salvia apiana, white sage

White sage, in New Zealand is mainly used for smudging, personally, I use it more as a “keep-me-calm-and-happy” tonic by putting a fresh leaf in my (or my kids, or all of us!) water bottle to sup on for the day. I’ve also used it in a headache balm I made with lavender and peppermint. For more info on white sage, go to the side bar to find my articles on growing and caring for your white sage plant. If you would like to grow your own, contact me and I’ll put you on my “White sage email list” to let you know when I have more in stock.

Onwards to Salvia sclarea, Clary sage. The particular clary sage I grow is “turkenstania” which is a powerful white flowering variety, it is amazing as an ornamental, back filler and/or fragrant herb.

Salvia sclarea and bumblebee
Salvia sclarea and bumblebee
Clary sage foliage
Clary sage foliage

Medicinally Clary sage is probably most well known as an essential oil which is made from the seeds. The seeds are also what give Clary sage its country name “Clear Eyes”, the mucilage that the seeds create can help soothe eye irritation caused by foreign bodies. I tried this with my husband.. don’t think I did it right… poor man!

Moving on… Another wonderfully scented salvia is Salvia elegans, Pineapple sage. Mmmm hmmm, this is one delicious smelling plant and because it’s the leaves not the flowers that are scented you’ve got it all year round.

Salvia elegans, pineapple sage
Salvia elegans, pineapple sage

A lot of salvias have flowers especially made for hummingbirds, Pineapple sage flowers give you a perfect example of tubes fit for a long skinny hovering beak (FYI seeing a real life hummingbird is on my bucket list). On a cultivating note, over the last two years I’ve noticed that my pineapple sage plants that are in semi shaded positions are doing better than the ones in full sun. This is something that I know other people have noticed with their plants that usually are “best” in full sun, basils for example, this will most likely come up more and more as our environment deteriorates.

Lets meet Salvia confertiflora now, sometimes known as red velvet sage, but I recently, can’t think where, saw a plant labelled red velvet sage and it wasn’t confertiflora. Knowing botanical names and ensuring plants you buy have their botanical names on their labels is really very important if you care about knowing what you’re talking about!

Salvia confertiflora
Salvia confertiflora

The leaves have a very pungent smell, not entirely pleasant but quite unique. I don’t know of any medicinal uses with this plant, but gives your garden a lovely tropical feel and wax eyes love their flowers. If you live in a frost free area they can grow quite tall.

Did you know that chia seeds, the super food that most people have heard of these days is a salvia? Yah ha, so I planted some this year!

Salvia hispanica, Chia
Salvia hispanica, Chia

This photo was taken a couple of weeks ago, it’s flowering now, glorious purple spikes a lot like the following photo. Next season I will sow earlier (I sowed in late November) because I don’t think I’ll have many seeds to harvest before knarly weather and frosts do their worst to the plants.

Salvia farinacea, Victoria blue
Salvia farinacea, Victoria blue

This is Salvia farinacea, Victoria blue. It was my understanding that it was an annual, but it’s still growing strong in its second year, I’m not complaining, the flowers are an amazing colour. This is a pure ornamental salvia, the leaves don’t even have a scent.

There is another salvia that I have where the leaves have no scent, which surprised me and made me quadruple check that what I had (I had been given a cutting) was actually what I was told it was… Salvia divinorum. If you know what this is please don’t get over-excited, I’m still getting my own plant established (and learning how it grows best) before I can consider propagating off it to sell plants.

Salvia divinorum, the diviners sage
Salvia divinorum, the diviners sage

Salvia divinorum has psychoactive properties and Mazatec shamans have a long and continuous tradition of religious use of Salvia divinorum to facilitate visionary states of consciousness during spiritual healing sessions (thank you Wikipedia). Considering it comes from the montane cloud forests of Oaxaca, Mexico, I might have a good chance of it growing well here in Eketahuna!

So not a massive collection but I love the diversity of it and hope to keep on finding new and interesting salvias to add to it. I’m not selling any plants at this time of year but I’ll be starting cuttings soon so let me know if you’re interested in any of these.

Keep warm and embrace the sun when you see it!

Filed Under: Herbal Lore, Herbs in Use, Pretty Pictures, White sage Tagged With: Chia, clary sage, commonn sage, pineapple sage, purple sage, salvia apiana, salvia confertiflora, Salvia divinorum, salvia elegans, salvia farinacea, Salvia hispanica, salvia officinalis, salvia sclarea, the diviners sage, tri-coloured sage, turkenstania, varigated sage, Victoria Blue, white sage

Kia ora 2019!

January 9, 2019 By SandRa Timmins Leave a Comment

Hello, hello 2019, hello you.

Sunshiney St Johns Wort
Sunshiney St Johns Wort

One of my customers told me this week that according to numerology, 2019 is going to be super. So perhaps I won’t give up just yet! 2019 is a number 3 year and three is a pretty fine number for all that it symbolises. If you’re interested in that sort of jazz (or your interest is piqued) go here to Forever Conscious to find out more.

In the spirit of “creativity, self-expression, and alignment” (did you look at that link?) I might write more personal posts, maybe show my paintings and other crafty concoctions as well as herby things. But….

I must admit, apart from time and other priorities the reason my blog posts have been so few and far between lately is because our camera is getting a bit on the old side and the plug points to load the photos on the computer are worn. So to get my photos loaded I have to ever so precisely hold the plug in at some special angle whilst pressing certain buttons (with my nose) and perhaps hold my head/feet/tongue at a particular angle whilst hoping the planets are aligned to be able to successfully get them on there. And still it doesn’t work. So I have to ask my husband to do it whom obviously has his feet in the right position and asks the right gods – because he can do it instantly. But I hate asking him, because as much as I love him he does this bloody eye roll thing or a loaded pause before saying the right words, which are “Yes dear, I’ll do that for you”. And it makes me want to shake him and sometimes I even hate him for about 40 seconds. Nobody likes that. And I’ve got other things to ask him to do – like saw off the chickens roosts because they’re riddled with mites (he can do it so much quicker than me). I can handle eye rolls then, you know, they’re kinda warranted!

So know that these photos that come to your eyes right now came with a little bit of eye roll, a lot of stern eye and a whole lot of garden love~

The side garden with Clary sage and white hydraengas
The side garden with Clary sage and white hydraengas

My “Turkenstein” Clary sage (Salvia sclarea) is in full bloom at the moment and is amazing. (Still have plants available, go here..) It gives you heaps of coverage, a beauts musky scent that really, only a salvia can pull off. Flowers for bees and bumblebees AND any sturdy vase you have on hand.

Clary sage with Feverfew underneth a plum tree
Clary sage with Feverfew underneth a plum tree
Salvia sclarea and bumblebee
Salvia sclarea and bumblebee
..and here we have Clary modelling with Gladioli
..and here we have Clary modelling with Gladioli
Fingers after picking Hypercium perforatum flowers
What have these guys been up to?!

St Johns Wort (Hypercium perforatum) has been flowering steadily since Christmas and I’m starting my second lot of St Johns Wort oil. Fabulous for healing, here’s a link that will tell you more. I grow St Johns Wort in my garden. It’s usually wildcrafted, but last year I couldn’t find any that wasn’t beside a dusty roadside, so I plucked a runner or two and set them in a bed. It’s been growing like the clappers and I’ve got to make sure I harvest as many flowers as I can or else the seeds will pop all over the place and become the invasive weed it is known as in some parts of the country. What doesn’t go in my oil I will snip and use as a fabric dye.

St Johns Wort and it's fabulous oil that keeps getting redder and redder
St Johns Wort and it’s fabulous oil that just keeps getting redder and redder

It takes two to three weeks for the redness to show through in your oil. During that time it should be in the sun, I usually pick everyday for a week then leave it be~ and then start another!

Catnip in bloom
I dare the cat that can reach this!

The above picture is a small portion of my Catnip (Nepeta cataria) that is now drying as we speak/read/write.

Aghhh! What’s happened to my Golden marjoram!

Recall me mentioning the mites thing…

Buff orpington self medicating in oregano
It’s Waiohine self medicating..

My clever chickens are self medicating themselves in the herb patch, luckily I’m a generous soul and I have this in other places where the chooks don’t go!

Anyhoo, this is a good start for me for the new year, lets see if I can keep it up (I have photos pre-loaded now so it’s looking promising!)

PS. To be fair, I actually got a “Righty-o” when I asked my benevolent hubby to do the photo thing. We’re all good!

Filed Under: Herbs in Use, Pretty Pictures Tagged With: Catnip in flower, clary sage, Hypercium perforatum, mites, numerology 2019, oil, salvia sclarea, self medicating chickens in the oregano, St Johns Wort, Turkenstein

A Sight for Sore Eyes, Clary Sage

January 15, 2017 By SandRa Timmins Leave a Comment

(white) Clary sage in full bloom

(white) Clary sage in full bloom

It’s been well worth the wait…Clary sage,  Salvia sclarea doesn’t flower til its second year but when it does it’s most dramatic and for plant geeks most exciting!

Let’s start from the start in how to grow these magnificent plants as there seems to be a lot of interest in clary sage.

Clary sage (Salvia sclarea) seedling

Clary sage (Salvia sclarea) seedling

Seeds can be sown from early spring to mid summer.  The seeds germinate pretty reliably and don’t require any special teasing or molly coddling to come up and grow (unlike some other sages I know, S. Apiana I’m refering to you..) just light and water.

Don’t let the cute little seedlings fool you though.

Clary sage (Salvia sclarea) seedling

When you plant them out these puppies need quite a lot of space, they grow huge!  You want to give them a radius of about 80cm, particually if you have any low growing plants in the area.  As they tend to say in gardening books for big tall plants – “best to grow in the back of the border”.  With the flower spikes they grow to a height of over a meter.

The other consideration of course when planting out is that it’s in a nice dry position with a fair amount of sun…in summer AND winter.  Once established they need the bare amount of watering.  Then the wait begins for the flowers to come out next summer.

Clary sage flower bud

Clary sage flower bud

The colours range from pink, purple to white.  The scent ranges from delightful lemony fragrance to smelly socks, dependant on the nose of the beholder!!

Flower busting out!

Flower busting out!

Side story;  I came across a gardenia flowering the other day, I love its perfume so I excitidly told my daughter to take a whiff, she leant over and poooh! instantly screwed her face up and held her nose saying “Eurghh!  What is that?!”   Oh.

Now, apparently, S. sclareas’ first claim to fame was as an adulteration in various alcohol concoctions from Rhenish wines infused with elder flower to beers which “produced an effect of insane exhilararation of spirits succeeded by severe headache” (Mrs M. Grieve)  Is that what they put in Beer Chang??

If you go to earthnotes website there’s a recipe for Clary wine amongst other fabolous/interesting herb and fruit based wines..

It’s the use of the seeds that gives clary sage its other name of “Cleareyes”.  When soaked in water the seeds create a mucilage coating which can then be used to clear debris from the eye.

Clary sage, salvia sclarea

The most common use nowadays of clary sage is in its essential oil form.  Which is kind of out of my jurisdiction but here’s a website that will tell you all about it!

 

 

 

Filed Under: Herbal Lore Tagged With: clary sage nz, growing clary sage nz, how to grow clary sage, salvia sclarea

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Beautiful, strong herbs
for gardeners
and herbalists
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Grown
with passion
and persistence.

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