Transplanting in spring preferred for sage plant

Q

I have a one-year-old pineapple sage plant that I need to move. Should I prune it back first? The plant is 120 cm high and has not yet bloomed, although the leaves have a wonderfully fruity fragrance. Should I transplant it now or wait until spring? Does pineapple sage need a protective mulch over the winter? I garden at the coast.

A

Because the plant did not bloom in the summer, and also because of its height, I am guessing that you have the species Salvia elegans and not the shorter, hardier form called Honey Melon sage, which grows just 45 to 60 cm tall, begins flowering in early summer, and is hardy to -7 C or less.

S. elegans grows to a shrubby 120 to 150 cm, prefers temperatures no lower than -1 C, and is often cut down by cold weather before it can begin blooming (often not until November). The plants benefit from a tidying up and a light protective mulching for winter. A spring transplanting is preferred for this and other plants of borderline hardiness. The plants die back to the ground in winter. Cut dead growth away before transplanting.

Consider, in spring, watching for Honey Melon at garden centres. I think you’d be pleased with its undemanding nature, hardiness and long season of bright scarlet flowers, which are edible. Hummingbirds are frequent visitors to my plant, which has been in the garden for many years now. In most years it blooms well into November.

A mail order source for Honey Melon sage, and a wonderfully extensive selection of other herb plants and seeds, is Richters, a long-established Canadian company. (Richters.com.)

Its catalogue notes Honey Melon is well suited for containers. In the spring I’ll be sharing root pieces with a neighbour who wants to add Honey Melon to the pots around his sunny front doorway, for the enjoyment of the plant’s rich fragrance and the hummingbirds it attracts.