In response to the Daily Post Photo Challenge ‘Partners’.
When I planted garden sage, I was adding to my collection of cooking herbs. I must admit, I also dreamed of making smudge sticks, but later learned that the varieties of sage used for ceremonial burning are quite different….and it is not pleasant nor healthy to burn garden sage! I tried a few locations, and finally found one where sage would grow happily. In fact they took over…this is the third year now and they are a thriving community, bushy and close, sending up multiple spikes of purple flowers.
This second photo gives a somewhat closer view of the flowers, sharing their stems with many others.
Plants love to congregate. It never ceases to amaze me how, when left to their own devices, plants will grow next to and under each other. Sometimes called weeds, they could be thought of as companions, depending on your perspective at the moment. The main neighbor shown here is a dogwood bush, visited by spittle bugs, which, I am told, will not damage the plant. And finally, the most interesting part of this photo for me is the surprise collection of white sage flowers!
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Ontheland 
Fragrant pictures !
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I’m glad you picked up the fragrance :))
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Janice, the sage is beautiful and I never knew it flowered like this. It’s fantastic when a plant multiplies and grabs its own space over the years, filling in all the gaps. At the moment we have a battle between dog roses, hebe, rose bushes and another bush. I fear the former and its prickles are winning! I’m still trying to work out what a ‘smudge stick’ could be??
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Thank you Annika. A smudge stick is a bunch of herbs such as white sage, sweet grass, tobacco or cedar, dried and bound tightly together with string. The end is lighted creating smoke which is used part of North American native rituals…cleansing, purifying, healing etc. The use of smudge sticks…they are like fat herbal incense sticks…has spread to mainstream ‘New Age’ ceremonies of many kinds. One use for example might be to smudge (wave smoking wand) in the rooms of a new house to purify it of any bad feelings or evil spirits. The flowering is exciting as you have to wait for a year or two for them to fully take off.
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Thank you for such detailed answer – I have never heard of the expression but now understand what you mean.
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