Marcus Blue Meadow Sage

Flowering sages are classic perennials, and great for color in early summer. Most get rather tall and can be floppy, and what may suit you better is a more compact, shorter plant that still captures that amazing blue coloring. That’s where the Marcus Dwarf Blue Sage take central stage, because it is exactly like classics like ‘May Night’ and ‘East Friesland’, but only a foot tall, a little slower growing, and a perfect smaller plant for adding rich blue to smaller spots in your garden or for planters. It rises up as many upright branches, with neat 2-inch green leaves that have a rough surface and a great fragrance if you crush one. 3-inch spikes of deep-blue flowers tip every stem, each one staying in bloom for about a month, with new ones rising up on side branches. With its strong blue coloring – so rare among garden plants – it’s a great way to highlight and blend all other colors in your garden. Grow it in formal settings with other perennials of all kinds, as an interesting way to edge your shrub beds, in rock gardens, walls, and meadow gardens too. Grow it beneath taller plants in boxes and pots, or blended with other perennials and annual flowers – it’s a great answer when ‘small and blue’ is the question.

• Compact version of the classic blue sage perennial
• 3-inch spikes of deep blue flowers through summer
• Easy-care and drought tolerant
• Looks great in formal settings, wild gardens and planters
• Dead-head for continuous blooming

Choose a place in full sun to plant Marcus Dwarf Blue Sage, or it will take just a little shade for an hour or two each day. Plant it in any well-drained soil, including poorer, sandy soils and among rocks. Deer and rabbits normally leave it alone, and it doesn’t have pest or disease problems. Remove just the flower spikes as they fade – this encourages lots of new blooming for months. Cut the whole plant back to about an inch tall in late fall, and next spring it will come back stronger and better than ever. Plants can be divided after a few years, to increase your supply of this great little plant.