sage as a cut flower
In the past I’ve occasionally cut flowers from the garden, only to have them wilt immediately and disintegrate into a pile of organic matter on top of a table I wanted to look nice for company. Last weekend I was trimming back the ivy-leaved sage, Salvia cacaliaefolia. At first the stems went into the greens recycling can. But they looked too pretty there and I wondered how well they’d do as cut flowers. So into the house they came, making a big, informal bouquet/science experiment for the dining table.
The verdict? The flowers looked great through day three, with only the occasional flower falling off the stem. Then after that the ends of the stems where the flowers live started to droop. By day five, although the leaves still looked perfectly presentable, the flower ends were totally wilted, blooms had dropped off the stems, and there was a dry, black, granular something or another (pollen? seeds?) littering the table surface. Time for the greens recycle bin.
That was no worse than the lifespan of many of the more classic cut flowers, so I’ll be treating myself to vase-fulls of ivy-leaved sage the next time I cut it back.
June 22 2008 05:33 am | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: Add new tag • cut flowers • ivy-leaved sage • Salvia cacaliaefolia
deb on 22 Jun 2008 at 7:09 pm #
Great Idea. I think I will add my black and blue salvia to some of my arrangements.
[ Lost in the Landscape ] » all stems on 23 Jun 2008 at 4:52 am #
[…] Speaking of cut flowers, I often think that the most beautiful part of what’s in the vase isn’t necessarily the blooms. Photographer Lee Friedlander, whose work often exhibits a droll-to-bratty iconoclastic bent, did a book just a few years ago that was titled Stems. (The Photo-Eye online bookstore uses the BookTease feature that lets you take a look at some of the images in the book.) […]
Wicked Gardener on 25 Jun 2008 at 3:09 pm #
You should have left the stems in a little longer — they root from cuttings reasonably well.
lostlandscape on 27 Jun 2008 at 3:35 pm #
I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t begin to root after just a few more days. This variety roots readily from cuttings–I have six plants sitting in the greenhouse right now.