The Rainbush

I am not sure (without Googling, anyway) what the growth region is for the Purple Sage. In my hometown it is a staple of xeriascape shrubbery. I have a couple I put in my backyard, to round out the red yucca, lantana, golden trumpets, and birds of paradise trees. It is a wonderful perennial garden with lots of show, and zero maintenance (yet, anyway) outside winding the vines up into the lattice to help control them and improve visibility/flash.

I had noticed that the sage were starting to bloom on Thursday. It is possible that it started earlier, but I noticed on Thursday. I just knew it would rain soon, which has been a fairly frequent blessing lately (and welcomed, after our 5 year long drought).

Today while driving around doing work related errands, the bright purple was distracting. The amount of bushes in bloom was crazy, and the amount of bloom on each one was even crazier. Stark and vivid purple, you couldn't see the light green leaves at all.

The "old timers" will say that when you first see the Rainbush start to bloom, it will rain in 4-7 days.

About 5pm the clouds opened today. My business had rainwater jump the curb and run into the front doors. Not a huge deal, we are insured (everyone thinks your crazy to get flood insurance in the desert....suckers), and the damage is minimal enough a claim won't be filed.

But it was nice to see this somewhat extinct knowledge (others in my office didn't know about the Purple Sage being called "The Rainbush) by the old timers) being proven true once again.

For details:

www.examiner.com...

and, of course, a picture for the "link-clicking challenged"

Full bloom:



not blooming:

Abundance of anything you grow is wonderful. Beautiful plant! It's nice to be able to test local lore, isn't it?

Looking at a few websites, they seem to disagree as to whether the flowers are edible. Another site indicated that deer and rabbits avoid it; if true, I don't think I'd eat it. Bad habit of mine -- always wanting to snack on the groundcover.

reply to post by argentus


In between flowerings you can use the leaves as you would regular sage. It isn't as good as what you would get in an herb garden, but from what I understand there is a vague taste of sage in it.

I dunno....i just buy my sage in the produce section.