Is Russian Sage deer resistant?

Aromatic silver foliage that deer walk past even in bad years, and one of the few plants that looks better in poor dry ground than in good soil.

Fed and watered, it grows tall, soft and floppy, then splits open in the middle after rain and never recovers its shape. Sharp drainage, full sun and no fertilizer is the whole requirement.

Cut it hard in spring, down to about six inches, once you see buds breaking on the lower stems. Leaving the old growth up over winter is fine and looks good in frost, but pruning in fall risks losing the plant. Note that botanists moved it out of Perovskia into Salvia, so newer labels read Salvia yangii.

Do deer eat Russian sage?

Rarely. Rutgers rates it Rarely Damaged, A, listed under its old name Perovskia, and NC State tags it deer and rabbit resistant with drought, poor soil, pollution and salt on the same list. It sits with lavender and catmint among the aromatic gray-leaved perennials that a deer walks past in a bad year, and the scent that carries across a bed in August is the reason.

Where it grows

NC State: zones 5a to 9b, 2 to 4 feet, full sun, flowering June to October, and "Russian sage has no serious insect or disease problems." The one problem NC State records is the one the note above describes: it "may sprawl or flop over as the growing season progresses," which is what rich soil and water do to it.

Protecting Russian sage

Nothing. It is the plant other things are protected by, in the sense the perennials page describes: a drift of it in front of the phlox does measurable work because the deer meets the scent first.

If it is browsed

It regrows from the woody base, which is where it is cut to every spring anyway; a browsed Russian sage is a pruned one. Late flowers come on the new growth.