Pineapple sage

Pineapple sage blossom

Before I started growing vegetables, I had a big crush on herbs. Vegetables took too much maintenance and space, and as for ornamentals, I told myself that I wasn't interested in any plant that couldn't earn its keep. But there was one herb included in all of my balcony and patio gardens that I could never fully justify-- pineapple sage.

Pineapple sage is not a particularly useful herb. Unlike culinary sage, it isn't very aromatic: the leaves smell pleasant, and faintly sweet, but not really like pineapple. It is not as hardy as culinary sage; it's considered a tender perennial, which means it wilts at the first touch of frost. It has no known medicinal value. The best suggestion any herb book can come up with for using it is to steep the leaves with other herbs for a tisane, or to use springs and blossoms as a garnish for cold drinks.

It hasn't turned out to be low-maintenance, either. Every one of my plants has attracted aphids-- the ones stressed by too much heat and sunlight are a more potent aphid magnet than roses. They do well outside in partial sunlight in Washington, but frost inevitably hits before they bloom-- that's just been my luck with them for the past seven or eight years.

So imagine my surprise when my root-bound, insect-ridden overwintered cuttings started sprouting racemes last week. O.o

The flowers are as beautiful as the nursery tags promise-- a gorgeous shade of vivid scarlet. If only I could get these plants to do this outdoors! Maybe I've been treating my plants too kindly-- rosemary, for instance, only blooms under stress. Maybe they need to be root-bound, overheated, and dehydrated. I suppose it's worth a try.

For now, though, I'm just going to kick back and enjoy this little run of luck. We're still getting snow in spurts outdoors, so this may be the biggest show I see for a while.

And I gotta tell ya-- after seven years of nothing, it feels like a mighty fine show.

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Cross-posted to Vox.