Common Garden Sage

Soft gray-green leaves on a shrubby perennial that comes back bigger every year and shrugs off drought once it is established. Sage wants sharp drainage above all else — more plants are lost to wet winter feet than to cold. Cut it back hard in spring to keep it from going woody and sparse in the middle. Flowers are lavender-blue and the bees find them immediately.

Where it comes from. A Mediterranean native grown in kitchen gardens for centuries.