Today's plant of the day for Salvias is Island Black Sage (Salvia brandegeei).

This plant can be found in the NGA Plant Database at:
Santa Rosa Island Sage (Salvia brandegeei) .

Please join in, if you own this plant! We would love to know more!



Also, please consider adding a "Local Report" to the NGA Plant Database! Thank you!

Santa Rosa Island Sage (Salvia brandegeei)

I have just added this to my dry garden (in the Santa Cruz mountains of CA), would be interested in hearing others' experience... It was recommended as an excellent bee/pollinator plant. Will post image after it grows awhile.

@HamiltonSquare and @wcgypsy,

Do you still grow Salvia brandegeei or if you don't anymore, could you share your growing advice and info to help @GaelN?

Hopefully mine is alive and doing well on our SoCal property that we no longer own....it was established enough by the time we left that even the new owner who is no gardener has probably not managed to kill it......tough plant in a good climate for it...maybe it has spread a lot by now.

Mine was old, woody and very large too so I pruned it back to stumps.Wasn't sure what would happen. It has come back from that but I don't recommend doing it. I had lightly pruned it for a few years trying to get it to fill in but it didn't work. It is now a much smaller plant along with a seedling and looking good. I'm going to keep it smaller than it had been by pruning it every year and see how that works. It blooms in march here so it is an early resource for the bees and hummers. It'll be a standard in this garden.

In the wild, this is a coastal species - never found very far from the Pacific. We've found it is at its best when left alone - no water, no pruning - just allowed to grow. This is some 300 miles north of the wild population limits. We have some 15 years+ old that just grow and grow with absolutely zero care. But we've killed them by trying to shape via pruning or push with summer water.

Thanks @wcgypsy, @HamiltonSquare and @FBTS for chiming in with your knowledge and info.

@GaelN, I hope this helps you out.