Lake County Native Wildflowers: Sonoma Creeping Sage
- Karen Sullivan, Kim Riley and Terre Logsdon
- Posted On
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – What native wildflower can take hold on banks and prevent erosion, is fire retardant, drought tolerant, fast-growing, won’t need to be pruned, hummingbird pollinated, attracts bees, and suppresses weeds and invasive grasses, and like most plants in this genus, is deer resistant and needs no water once established?
If you guessed Sonoma Creeping Sage, you are correct!
Found predominantly in the Red Hills soils around the slopes of Mt. Konocti, salvia sonomensis, or Sonoma Creeping Safe, is in bloom April through May and is extremely drought, heat and cold tolerant, can grow on serpentine soils that we mentioned in a previous column, and will take watering in your landscaping for other plants if the soils have good drainage.
This creeping (which means it grows close to the ground thus making an excellent groundcover) Sonoma sage is an evergreen perennial found in full sun on rocky slopes to partial shade under pines.
“Many sages grow throughout California, but this one has a distinct natural range. It can be found in coastal areas from Santa Barbara to San Diego. It’s also found in the Sonoma County region,” including parts of Lake and Napa Counties, according to Epic Gardening.
The largest habitat for this plant is along the Sierra Nevada mountain range where it grows on southwest-facing slopes below 6000 feet, in foothills and slopes above the central valley region because these all share similar climates: hot arid summer days, cooler and more humid nights - just like Lake County.
With silvery grey and fragrant leaves you may wonder (because they do look similar and are a salvia as well) if the leaves of Sonoma creeping sage can be used in cooking?
Although not poisonous, creeping sage (Salvia sonomensis) does not taste at all like culinary sage (or common sage, Salvia officinalis) so it is recommended to leave it for the bees.
The flower spikes range from a soft lilac to a bicolor blue and create a gorgeous pop of color against the sage green leaves while in bloom April through May.
For more information, visit CalScape at https://calscape.org/Salvia-sonomensis-(Sonoma-Sage)?srchcr=sc5af90eb8ae5d7.
Nurseries where you can purchase seeds/starts: https://calscape.org/nurseries.php?id=3371&showmap=1.
Terre Logsdon is an environmentalist, certified master composter, and advocate for agroecology solutions to farming. An avid fan and protector of California wildflowers, plants, natural resources, and the environment, she seeks collaborative solutions to mitigate the effects of climate change. Kim Riley is retired, an avid hiker at Highland Springs, and has lived in Lake County since 1985. After 15 years of trail recovery and maintenance on the Highland Springs trails, she is now focused on native plants, including a native plant and pollinator garden on her property as well as promoting and preserving the beauty of the Highland Springs Recreation Area. Karen Sullivan has operated two nurseries to propagate and cultivate native plants and wildflowers, has lived in Kelseyville for the past 30 years, rides horses far and wide to see as many flowers as possible, and offers native plants and wildflowers for sale to the public. You can check her nursery stock here. They are collaborating on a book, Highland Springs Recreation Area: A Field Guide, which will be published in the future. In the meanwhile, please visit https://www.facebook.com/HighlandSpringsNaturalists and https://www.facebook.com/HighlandSpringsRecreationArea.