Winter Pruning: Autumn Sage & Mealy Blue Sage

February 13 , 2024

Winter Pruning: Autumn Sage & Mealy Blue Sage

Autumn sage ( Salvia greggii ) denote that saltation is here when bees , butterflies , and hummingbird descend upon its miniature flowers to imbibe up . For some ground , this native woody repeated ( also considered a sub shrub ) is called “ autumn sage , ” though it can bloom as too soon as February . After a summer break , it resumes in downslope , just in time for migrating hummingbird and butterflies . Early February ’s a great clock time to clip and mold for looks — same height and lush form — and for long terminus health . So , we head to theWildflower Centerwhere plantsman Leslie Uppinghouse show where to cut above Modern increase . “ You ’ll want to await for your oldest arm and check that that they ’re still viable , that they ’re still show a lot of fresh fleeceable growth . ” If a branch does n’t show Modern growth , remove it by cutting at the base . She pruned a few in advance to show the difference between before and after . “But I would n’t recommend removing all of your quondam growth , ” she sum up . “ I treat autumn sage kind of like a rose , a very old tea rose . About every three years I take out my oldest stalk and I let some of those unexampled ones sort of take their place . And so that ’s sort of the general rule I make with all the submarine sandwich shrubs or the woody shrubs . And that ’s not a hard , degenerate normal . It ’s just my preference . ” Leslie also advised to draw piles of mulch or go away off from the al-Qaeda to avoid putrefaction . Check for rotting branches , too , and just pluck them out . She likes to await until after a frost for late wintertime ’s shaping . All salvia , she order us , create newfangled growth after rationalize . So , after bounce efflorescence , “ I ’ll tip off those blossom ; not even a third of the plant . I ’ll tip back to some nice green ontogeny and then I do it again in the summer . I do not prune it if we are in a drought year in the later summer . It tends to be a little stressful , ” she order . Here ’s that cluster ofSalvia greggii‘Teresa ’ last May .

Watch now for dozens more!Next , we headed over to the theme gardens where she ’d already trim back onetime growing on herbaceous perennial like aster . I finished that job last weekend , too , since birds have grabbed all the semen . Now ’s a near meter to carve up them if you require to dwell other areas . In this seam , Leslie showed us how she clip off last class ’s increment on mealy blue sage ( Salvia farinacea ) . “ The beautiful matter about a herbaceous perennial is it will very clearly tell you visually in the wintertime where and when to tailor back , ” she say . This one ’s not as exacting as woody autumn sage . She simply clip it back to new ontogeny at the bottom . Mealy dreary salvia bloom leaping through fall . Here , it teamed up with empurpled coneflower , another pollinator powerhouse .

It even blossom in summer , though it can get leggy . Leslie ’s trick : “ I ’ll cut about every other stalk to the ground and I ’m become to leave the blooms at the top . So , what I ’m kind of doing is tricking the eye into retrieve that the plant bloom and blooms and blooms and blooms and heyday continuously . I ’m actually thinning by get rid of about every third stalk ; I ’ll get dainty young growth that will bloom in a duo of weeks . And then I cut those old bloom back to the ground , ” she said .

Salvia greggii native perennial Central Texas Gardener