Plant Medicine: Grow Your Own White Sage
29/11/2016
This article includes discussion of Native Californian peoples traditional use of plants as medicine. It is intended for cultural and environmental education purposes only, and should not be taken as medical advice.
There are few plants as important in the Native Californian medicine cabinet as white sage. Its aromatic, waxy leaves have long been used to treat a variety of ailments and to promote general health. Traditional Native Californians before contact found white sage so indispensable for everyday life that a bundle of its leaves was a standard gift. Native tribes living well outside of the natural growing range of white sage valued it too, and the leaves were traded across much of the west.
There are also few Native medicinal plants whose popularity among non-Native people contributes so much to their increasing scarcity in the wild. Demand for those little bundles of white sage leaves has generated a substantial wildcrafting industry. In those parts of the mountains of Southern California closest to cities, it is increasingly common to come upon once-prodigious stands of white sage sheared to the ground. Not only is that ecologically problematic, but it's also considered disrespectful; many California Indians hold that white sage is supposed to be a gift, not a commodity that's bought and sold.
The good news is that the backdoor trade in white sage is unnecessary, because it's startlingly easy to grow white sage in the cities at the base of those mountains. All you really need is a sunny, dry spot and a small amount of patience.
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterSend EmailCommentPin on PinterestShare on LinkedInShare on Google+
--
--
White sage, Salvia apiana, is one of a group of closely related Salvias native to California, including chia, Cleveland sage, and black sage. White sage was used ceremonially in the fashion with which most urban Californians of a certain bent are familiar these days: burning to fill the air with the leaves' pleasant-scented smoke. But it was also used internally, with teas taken for digestive complaints, sore throats and bronchitis, and to ease menstrual pain and symptoms of menopause. There may be some explanation for that last use in the plant's healthy supply of phytoestrogens, plant chemicals similar to human sex hormones. As for the respiratory effects, white sage's eucalyptol content would explain those, and it's possible that eucalyptol, along with tannins, is also the reason the tea was (and is) used externally on sores as a mild antiseptic.
Many Native people, and others, use white sage internally for those same complaints today. The leaves do contain a potentially toxic chemical called thujone that can cause anxiety, confusion, and kidney problems, so - as with many herbal teas - small amounts are the way to go unless you're consulting with a health care professional.
In the garden, white sage is a tender perennial that will come back from frosts as cold as 10 F or so. That means that most California gardens outside the alpine zone are suitable from white sage. Hard frosts will kill a white sage plant to the ground, with new growth arising from the root system once the soil warms. In warm-winter parts of the state, you may have to trim your plant aggressively to keep it from dominating a small garden, unless you like that sort of thing.
And white sage is tailor-made for California gardens in an age of drought. Enthusiastic watering can actually kill it, especially if your soil has slow drainage.
Nursery manager Nick Hummingbird demonstrates the proper way to prune white sage. | Photo: KCET
It's easier and easier to find white sage in nurseries these days. When choosing a container-grown white sage, it's good to err on the side of smallness: plants in containers larger than one gallon are a bit more susceptible to transplant shock, and the one-gallon plants will catch up to their bigger siblings within a year or so.
more from tending the wild
Plant Medicine: Grow Your Own Chia
Giving Thanks in The Year of Standing Rock
Indigenous Cooking: Yucca Petal Hash
1 of 13
next
Fall is the best time for planting white sage from containers; it's the start of the species' typical growing season, and it's also the time of year when rain has the best chance of falling on the soil right when the plant needs a little water to get established in its new home. (You should count on giving white sage a few deep waterings during its first fall and winter, especially in drought years. That's still less water than a Japanese maple would need.)
If you're a more adventurous gardener, or if (like me) you're painfully cheap, you can also grow white sage from seed pretty easily. Seeds should be planted in spring if you're growing your small plants in a seed tray or small containers. (Larger containers will stay wet longer, increasing the chances that a fungus will kill your seedlings.)
To germinate, simply sprinkle the white sage seeds on the surface of the soil, then wet them down with clean water from a plant mister type spray bottle. The seeds need light to germinate, and should be kept somewhere between 70 and 85 F. Keep the soil moist but not soggy. (That mister bottle is the perfect tool for this.)
Germination should take two to three weeks, and somewhere around half your seeds will germinate. (If you're using little pots, six-packs, or peat pellets, that's why you should put a few seeds in each one.) If you're using a seed tray, you can start thinking about transplanting the new sages into pots after they develop their first pair of true leaves, which come after the seed leaves that first emerge at germination.
Maintain your potted sages until fall, then transplant them into their
LINK: | https://www.kcet.org/shows/tending-the-wild/plant-medicine-grow-your-o... |
See more stories from kcet |
More from KCET
13/12/2016
The Invention of Souern California s Spanish Fantasy Past
Helen Hunt Jackson - misunderstood romantic, misremembered advocate of Native American rights - lingered some weeks in Los Angeles between December 1881 and the...
13/12/2016
Six Festive Places to Get in the Holiday Spirit
More on the Holidays in L.A. The Long-Awaited Return of Santa's Village Five Ways Southern California Once Dressed Itself Up for the Holidays Where ...
13/12/2016
A Veteran s Viewpoint on the National Parks
Cinder cones along Kelbaker Road in the Mojave National Preserve | Photo: Don Barrett, some rights reserved Commentary: As a soldier in the U.S. Army, I serve...
13/12/2016
The Desert Is Made of Water
Silver Lake, north of Baker, in January 2005 after a wet winter | Photo: Chris Clarke The California Desert includes some of the driest, hottest places on the...
13/12/2016
The Empowering and the Personal in Helado Negro s It s My Brown Skin
The video for Helado Negro's It's My Brown Skin is suffused with light...
12/12/2016
Why Dsn t It Snow in L.A. Anymore?
I have some bad news for Angelenos dreaming of a White Christmas this year: you were probably born a half-century too late. Snow once fell on the Los Angeles...
10/12/2016
The Real-Life Drama of an Isrli P.O.W. s Return from Captivity
Prisoners of War, currently airing on KCET on Mondays at 10:00 p.m., features the story of three Israeli soldiers returning from 17 years of captivity. The insp...
10/12/2016
The Challenges of Police Reform and Transforming American Policing
Watch the Link Voices documentary, South Bureau Homicide, on our website. The film explores the roles of LAPD homicide detectives and a local communitys anti-vi...
10/12/2016
Who Will Be Los Angeles Next Pt Laureate?
More on Poetry U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera on Poetry, Progress and his California Roots Mentoring the Next Generation of L.A. Letters Luis Ro...
10/12/2016
Joshua Tree Citizen Science Sheds Light on Climate Change
Lizards eye view of a humane pit trap used to count wildlife | Photo: Joshua Tree National Park Nearly thirty years since the term citizen science was first u...
10/12/2016
Arguing the Landscape: Artist Don Suggs Interprets the American West
Los Angeles artist Don Suggs. | Photo: Paul OConnor More Visual Art The Triumphs and Hardships of Black America are Illustrated by Artist Nikkolas Smith ...
09/12/2016
Five Traditional Plant Medicines and How ey Might Work
Mule deer in yerba mansa | Photo: J.N. Stuart, some rights reserved This article includes discussion of Native Californian peoples traditional use of plants a...
09/12/2016
A Grand Slam: Denny s SoCal Succe Story
Who among us hasn't eaten at least one meal at Denny's? You'll find many types of people eating at this American favorite - hungover college student...
09/12/2016
A Chat with Native Herbalist Sage LaPena
Sage LaPena | Photo: KCET Sage LaPena is a Nomtipom Wintu ethnobotanist and certified medical herbalist. She has worked for years to preserve and pass along N...
09/12/2016
State Releases Plan for Gray Wolf Recovery
One of Californias newest wolf residents, discovered this year in Lassen County | Photo: CDFW Five years to the month after OR-7 became the first wild wolf to...
09/12/2016
is Week at Standing Rock in 0 Pictures
The Oceti Sakowin Camp | Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images Its been an eventful few days at the Standing Rock Reservation. On Sunday, December 4, the U.S. Army ...
09/12/2016
Neon Queen: Artist Lisa Schulte Owns One of the Largest Collections in the World
Portrait of Lisa Schulte. | Photo: Courtesy of the artist Explore the Work of More Visual Artists The Triumphs and Hardships of Black America are Illustra...
07/12/2016
Artbound Wins at 06 National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards
Artbound took home two First Place statuettes at the 9th annual National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards on Sunday. Our documentary, Charles Lummis: Rei...
07/12/2016
"Elysian Park is their Playground": How Grace Simons Saved One of L.A. s Oldest Parks
When Grace E. Simons relocated to Los Angeles from New York in the early 1940s, ...
07/12/2016
Sammy Lee: A Life at Shaped the Currents of California and U.S. History
Lives are lived. They span decades; they inhabit moments, eras, and epochs. For all of us, our lives thread their way through the currents of the day, but few o...
07/12/2016
The Long-Awaited Return of Santa s Village
A lot of people thought Santa's Village would never reopen. Others never dared to dream that it could. It all started on May 28, 1955 with the opening of t...
07/12/2016
Five Great Places to Ride Vintage Carousels
More From SoCal Wanderer 5 Lesser-Known Classic Car Collections Six Great Stair Treks to Help Work Off Thanksgiving Dinner Six Great Places to Experienc...
07/12/2016
Enter Ghanaian-Swi Group OY s Unique Vision of Space Diaspora
When OY peer into the future, they see something utterly unique: a world of billowy, technicolor ur-humans, living in a state of low-gravity euphoria. It's ...
05/12/2016
4 Important ings To Keep In Mind About Standing Rock
School at Oceti Sakowin Camp, Standing Rock | Photo: Oceti Sakowin Camp/Barbara J. Miner, some rights reserved Commentary: Finally, some good news out of 201...
02/12/2016
Financing Gay Liberation: How Local Government Supported LGBT Rights in 970s Los Angeles
When many of us visualize postwar lesbian and gay activism, we think of gay prid...
02/12/2016
Desert Water Project Would reaten Tribes Sacred Lands
The Cadiz Dunes with the Old Woman Mountains in the background | Photo: NASA Earth Observatory Commentary: The Old Woman Mountains stretch from the sandy dese...
01/12/2016
Paage of Prop 66 Puts Gov. Brown in a Tough Spot
In 1979, California Gov. Jerry Brown is sworn in for his second term by state Supreme Court Chief Justice Rose Bird, whom voters later removed from the court be...
01/12/2016
ese Gardens Are Transforming Schools and Homele Shelters In Los Angeles
Growing your food is a lot better than buying it from a market because they spray it with pesticides or something that could harm us or harm the plant and not m...
01/12/2016
Advocate and Lover to the L.A. River, Lewis MacAdams says Goodbye
Councilmember Mitch OFarrell, Lewis MacAdams, Councilmember Ed P. Reyes, Irma Munoz, Board Chair, MRCA, Councilmember Tom LaBonge and Gary Lee Moore, City Engin...
01/12/2016
Killing Mountain Lions Won t Protect Livestock. Being More Responsible Will.
P-45 in the Santa Monica Mountains | Photo: National Park Service [Editors note: This commentary is prompted by a ranchers move to kill one of the Santa Monic...
01/12/2016
Election Got You Down? California is Still Winning
Photo: Stef McDonald On Election Day, November 8, 2016, Los Angeles County voted well. California voted well. The rest of the nation? Not so much. I cant sug...
01/12/2016
The Triumphs and Hardships of Black America are Illustrated by Artist Nikkolas Smi
The Golden Girls of Rio, a book by Nikkolas Smith, puts female athletes front an...
30/11/2016
In an Age of Despair, Hope is More Important an Ever
Persistence pays off. | Photo: Vladimir Varfolomeef, some rights reserved Commentary: If you're an environmentally concerned person who reads the news, th...
30/11/2016
From Blade Runner to La La Land : these Films Casted Los Angeles in a Leading Role
(Left) A non-operational Angels Flight is observed by pedestrians. Photo: Sara N...
30/11/2016
8 Years of Tirele Work: Sou Bureau Homicide Detective Sal LaBarbera
Detective Sal LaBarbera is nearly two years into his retirement after 28 years at the Los Angeles Police Department South Bureaus homicide division and he has y...
30/11/2016
5 Leer-Known Claic Car Collections
More on Classic Cars Jimenez Bros Custom Cars: Some History and Some Love The Nethercutt Collection Lately, there's been a lot of buzz about the Pe...
30/11/2016
French Producer Dbruit Explores Istanbul s Psychedelic Side
You might think of Xavier Thomas' most recent album, d bruit & istanbul, as a musical travelogue. For Thomas, who records adventurous electronic music und...
30/11/2016
The Bradbury: A Brief History of L.A. s Movie-Star Building
Though most moviegoers will have seen a lot of Bradbury Building, they may not recognize it as a landmark of Los Angeles architecture - unless, of course, theyv...
29/11/2016
Photos: When Hollywood Was a Country Hamlet
Before movies, there were lemons. Hollywood at the turn of the 20th century was a place of religious zeal; a town founded by an ardent Prohibitionist and a devo...
29/11/2016
Five Ways Souern California Once Dreed Itself Up for the Holidays
Private shopping malls like the Grove might orchestrate the most extravagant holiday displays today, but that wasnt always the case. From candy-cane streetcars ...
29/11/2016
Plant Medicine: Grow Your Own White Sage
Planting white sage | Photo: Suzies Farm, some rights reserved This article includes discussion of Native Californian peoples traditional use of plants as med...
29/11/2016
Plant Medicine: Grow Your Own Chia
Chia blossom | Photo: Teresa Alexander-Arab, some rights reserved This article includes discussion of Native Californian peoples traditional use of plants as ...
29/11/2016
The Extraordinary Story of a Man Who Used Google Ear to Find His Bir Mr
Dev Patel (as Saroo Brierley) and Priyanka Bose (as Kamla) in the film Lion. Saroo Brierley was a small boy when he got lost. This wasnt a case of a tiny chi...
26/11/2016
Her Photos of Native American Ceremonial Sites Challenge Indigenous Portrayals
Mercedes Dorame, from the Living Proof photo series. More Photography Shes Photographing Every Native American Tribe in the United States These Native A...
26/11/2016
Beer Cans are Crushed and Coiled to Create Stunning Basket Sculptures
Continuum Basket: Flora by Gerald Clarke Jr. reflects the centuries-old Cahuilla tradition of basket-making. More on Native American Art Her Photos of Nat...
25/11/2016
Giving anks in the Year of Standing Rock
Tents and tipis at Standing Rock | Photo: Leslieamsterdam, some rights reserved In March, 1621 a man named Samoset, a leader of his Abenaki people, decided to...
25/11/2016
She Photographs Native American Actors as Icons of Hollywood s Golden Age
Deja Jones, an Eastern Shoshone tribal member, channels Ava Gardner in the series Real NDNZ Re-take Hollywood by Pamela J. Peters. When her father yelled Ki...
24/11/2016
Why Communities of Color in L.A. Voted Against Plastic Bags
Plastic and trash found in the L.A. River Last October, heavy rains poured into Los Angeles. It was a welcome sight for those intensely aware of the drought....
24/11/2016
Ds Foraging reaten Wildlands and Native Culture?
This sage bundle was ethically sourced. The ones for sale in fancy stores? Maybe not so much. | Photo: Department of Defense Beneath a canopy of drought-stres...
23/11/2016
is 960s Home Movie Rewinds Five Decades of Disneyland History
On July 17, 1955, some 70 million Americans tuned into ABC to watch the opening ceremonies for Disneyland - a product of 160 acres of Anaheim farmland, $17 mill...