Fruit Sage Drooping
Answered by: Inge Poot
Question from: Loise Desjardins
Posted on: November 9, 1998

I got fruit sage from Richters and am growing it indoors. The soil is moist and bug free, it gets good light, but it droops and new leaves don’t seem to want to come out. It grows from the top of the stem, is getting taller but that’s it. What do you think is happening?

Fruit sage is a herb that requires a great deal of water and lots of light. It is reluctant to branch and has to be forced to do so by cutting the plant down to the level where you want it to branch. It will usually produce two branches at the cut off tip. Allow them to grow to the point where you would like to see further branching and nip out the growing tip at that point. It will most likely again produce two branches at that point - one from each leaf node just under the cut off tip.

Placing the plant in a relatively large pot will give the plant a greater reservoir of water and it might be less prone to droop. The greater source of nutrients in the bigger pot should make the plant grow leafier and not drop the old leaves as quickly - the result : a bushier more attractive plant. In the summer the plant will bloom if it has adequate light and you should therefore not do any pinching out of tips then.

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