Clary sage
Salvia sclarea
also called clary, muscatel sage, clear eye
A flat rosette its first year, then a waist-high haze of papery bracts the bees work all day.
- Type
- Herb · Grown as a biennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Silver and gray · Green
- Flower color
- Purple and violet · Pink
- Sunlight
- Full sun
- Watering
- Low
- Soil
- Poor, dry, free-draining
- Feeding
- Gentle all-organic
- USDA zones
- 5a–9b
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Sow indoors
- 49 days before the last spring frost
- Sow direct
- at the last spring frost
- Plant out
- at the last spring frost
- First harvest
- 75 days after the last spring frost
- Harvest ends
- 14 days before the first fall frost
- Plant spacing
- 17.7 in
- In-row spacing
- 15.7 in
- Between rows
- 23.6 in
- Square-foot density
- 1 per square
- Root system
- A deep taproot
- Working depth
- 3–6 ft
- Can reach
- 10 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 18 in–2.5 ft across, about 0.75–1.25× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 24 in of soil
It mines water and minerals from below anything growing around it, which is what makes it drought-proof and what makes it so hard to be rid of: most of these regrow from any length of root left in the ground.
A stout taproot under the rosette, which is what carries it through a dry summer and why it hates being moved. Sow where it is to flower, or plant it out small; a potbound one that has already coiled its root sulks or bolts straight to a poor spike.
The habit is Clary sage’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- When
- The first year gives a rosette and nothing to pick beyond the odd leaf; the harvest is the second summer. Cut the flowering stems when the lower whorls are open and the bracts have taken their color but the top of the spike is still in bud, usually early to midsummer. Morning, once the dew has gone, is when the scent is strongest.
- What to look for
- Stiff square stems standing well clear of the rosette, tiers of papery bracts in lilac, blush pink or near-white, and small flowers showing in the lower whorls. Rub a bract and the smell is heavy and sweet. Bracts gone brown and papery at the base mean the spike is going over and is now a seed head.
- How to harvest
- Cut whole stems low, just above a pair of leaves near the base, with secateurs. Leaves are picked individually from the rosette. Wear sleeves in quantity: the stems and leaves are sticky with resin and the scent stays on your hands for hours.
- How often
- One main cut per plant, since the spike is the plant's whole second year. Cutting the first flush low will sometimes bring a smaller second set of stems late in the season. Leave two or three spikes standing if you want it to sow itself, and cut the rest before the seed drops or you will have clary sage everywhere.
- Storing the crop
- Fresh stems last a week or more in water and dry beautifully hung upside down in a dark, airy place, keeping their bract color for a year or two in an arrangement. Leaves dry flat or freeze. The seed shakes out of a paper bag once the heads are crisp; it stays viable about three years.
- Aphids Small sap-sucking insects — greenfly, blackfly — that cluster on soft new growth and excrete sticky honeydew. Squash by hand, hose off with water, and encourage ladybirds and lacewings.
- Slugs & snails Ragged holes and silvery trails on seedlings and soft young growth, worst in damp weather. Use beer traps, wool pellets, or torchlight hand-picking; keep beds clear of daytime hiding places.
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Garden birds Passeriformes
Both things are true: birds strip your currants and a brood of blue tits takes several thousand caterpillars out of one fruit tree in a fortnight. Net what you must and welcome them everywhere else — a nest box near the apples is worth more than a spray.
- Aphid midge Aphidoletes aphidimyzaHunts Aphids
A tiny midge whose orange maggots paralyze aphids and drink them dry, twenty or more each. Sold as a greenhouse biological control and resident outdoors wherever there are small nectar flowers and an unsprayed aphid colony to find.
- Assassin bug ReduviidaeHunts Aphids
A patient ambusher with a curved beak it drives into whatever it catches — caterpillars, beetles, bugs, and the occasional bee, so count it a generalist rather than a specialist. It will jab a careless finger too, so admire it and leave it be.
- Beneficial nematodes Steinernema & Heterorhabditis spp.Hunts Slugs & snails
Microscopic worms watered onto damp soil that hunt down soil-dwelling grubs and release a bacterium that kills them within days. Timing is the whole thing: warm, damp soil and a small target grub, which means late summer for most of what they are used against.
- Big-eyed bug Geocoris spp.Hunts Aphids
A stubby 3 mm bug with enormous wrap-around eyes, working the soil surface and the low foliage for aphids, mites, thrips and insect eggs. It is the main natural check on chinch bugs in a lawn and it is killed outright by insecticide.
- Centipedes ChilopodaHunts Slugs & snails
Flat, fast, one pair of legs to a segment — and a predator, unlike the slow round millipede it is constantly confused with. It hunts slugs, cutworms, springtails and woodlice by night under mulch and stones. Learn the difference and leave this one alone.
- Damsel bug NabidaeHunts Aphids
A slender, mantis-armed bug that grabs aphids, small caterpillars, and thrips in low crops and meadowy edges. Leave a strip of unmown grasses and flowers for it to overwinter in.
- Dragonflies & damselflies OdonataHunts Aphids
Aerial hunters that take mosquitoes, midges and small flies on the wing all day, and whose larvae spend a year or more clearing the same insects from the water. A pond with planted margins and no fish is the way to have them.
- Frogs & toads AnuraHunts Slugs & snails
A resident toad works the beds every night for slugs, cutworms, and weevils. Recruit them with water — even a sunken basin pond — plus damp shade and an upturned-pot toad house; skip the slug pellets that poison their prey.
- Green lacewing Chrysoperla carneaHunts Aphids
Its bristly larvae — "aphid lions" — impale aphids, mealybugs, thrips, and mite colonies, eating hundreds a week. Adults feed on nectar and pollen from small open flowers and overwinter in hollow stems left standing.
- Ground beetle CarabidaeHunts Slugs & snails
Fast, glossy night hunters that patrol the soil surface for slugs, cutworms, and root-fly larvae. Give them daytime cover — thick perennial edges, stepping stones, a log — and skip the tillage that wrecks their burrows.
- Hedgehog Erinaceus europaeusHunts Slugs & snails
A European animal, and worth saying so plainly: there are no hedgehogs in North America, and the ally that does the same night shift here is the toad, the opossum or the ground beetle. Where they do occur, cut a gap in the fence and skip the pellets.
- Hoverfly SyrphidaeHunts Aphids
Bee-mimicking flies whose legless larvae graze aphid colonies clean while the adults pollinate. A ribbon of shallow, nectar-rich flowers kept in bloom all season recruits wave after wave of them.
- Ladybird (lady beetle) CoccinellidaeHunts Aphids
The gardener’s favorite ally: adults and their alligator-shaped larvae each eat thousands of aphids, plus scale, mealybugs, and other soft-bodied sap-suckers. Grow flat, open flowers for the adults and never spray a colony that ladybird larvae are already working.
- Minute pirate bug Orius spp.Hunts Aphids
A pinhead-sized true bug that is the best natural check on thrips, and happily spears aphids, mites, and insect eggs too. It needs pollen when prey is scarce, so keep something flowering nearby.
- Parasitic wasps Braconidae & TrichogrammaHunts Aphids
Tiny, stingless wasps that lay eggs in or on caterpillars, aphids, and moth eggs — the white cocoons riding a hornworm are their calling card, so leave that caterpillar be. Umbel flowers with shallow nectar keep the adults fuelled.
- Praying mantis MantidaeHunts Aphids
A sit-and-wait ambusher that snatches caterpillars, beetles, and anything else that wanders close — friend and foe alike, so count it a mixed blessing. Tall, structured plantings give it perches and egg-case anchors.
- Rove beetle StaphylinidaeHunts Slugs & snails
Slim, quick beetles with short wing cases that hunt in soil and litter, taking root-fly eggs and larvae, fungus-gnat larvae, and mites. Mulch and undisturbed ground keep them resident year-round.
- Salamanders & newts CaudataHunts Slugs & snails
Damp-loving hunters of slugs, worms, woodlice and beetle larvae that spend the day under a log or a stone and work the beds at night. Companions to the toads: they want the same damp shade, the same log pile, and the same absence of slug pellets.
- Snakes & lizards Colubridae & PhrynosomatidaeHunts Slugs & snails
A garter snake works the beds for slugs and voles and a fence lizard clears grasshoppers off a sunny wall. Almost every snake a gardener meets is harmless and useful; give them a log pile, a warm flat stone and a bit of cover and they stay.
- Soldier beetle CantharidaeHunts Aphids
Soft-winged beetles seen mating on flower heads in high summer; adults and larvae both take aphids and soft grubs. Open composite flowers are their landing pads and hunting grounds.
- Spiders AraneaeHunts Aphids
Webs, ambushes, and night patrols make spiders the garden’s steadiest generalist predators, taking whatever flies or crawls past. Mulch, ground cover, and undisturbed corners keep the population dense.
Good neighbors
The old English name was 'clear eye', for the seed that swells to a jelly in water and was used to lift grit from an eye. The flowering tops are what clary sage oil is distilled from.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com