Sage advice: 4 uses for the versatile herb

There are many ways to incorporate the myriad varieties of sage into your garden, meals and home.

Sage is a hardy yet often short-lived perennial.

Garden sage

A woody, with soft gray-green foliage.

• The most familiar of the culinary sages, it's used primarily as a sausage and stuffing ingredient, but it also adds great flavour to breads, cheese, poultry and vegetable dishes.

Pineapple sage

Earning its name with its distinctive fragrance, it bears brilliant red flowers and grows to 90 centimetres (three feet).

• Add leaves and flowers to fruit salads, jams and tea.

Scarlet sage

Scarlet sage is a long-blooming mainstay of the annual bed. Hybrids come in pink, purple or ivory.

Silver sage

Grown for its foliage — broad, scallop-edged leaves covered with silvery down, its blooms are white to lavender.

Catalogues often describe sages as short-lived perennials or half-hardy annuals. In fact, some annual sages may survive mild winters, while extreme cold or hot, humid conditions may kill some perennials.

• When you try a new sage, mulch over its roots in late fall, then wait and see if it survives until spring.
• Garden sage loves sun and well-drained soil. Water young plants regularly until they become established. After a few weeks, they can tolerate drier conditions.

Some varieties are variegated, which makes them ideal for large containers planted with an assortment of herbs.

• Aurea sage has gold and green leaves.
• Purpurea sage has purple foliage.
• Icterina sage has yellowish foliage blotched with green.
• All grow to 75 centimetres (30 inches) tall.

Pinch individual leaves as you need them in the kitchen.

• In addition to chopping them into dishes, lay whole sage leaves over roasted meats or breads.
• To use sage in salads, lightly fry whole leaves in a little olive oil, drain on paper towels and crumble the crisp leaves over the finished salad.

Sage tea is good medicine and has an honourable history as an antiseptic mouthwash and digestive aid. Indeed, an old adage holds that "no man need be ill if sage grows in his garden."

To dry sage for wreaths or potpourri, cut flowering stems about 20 centimetres (eight inches) long, secure a bunch with a rubber band and hang it upside down in a cool place to dry.