Conserving white or sacred sage in our backyards to help the wild population recover.

Hello friends and family! I'm considering planting some white sage, ones we usually see in the wild in California and other places out west. They're pretty rare these days due to habitat destruction and overharvesting for ornamental purposes to make a quick buck off of it. How important white sage was to native peoples everywhere? Was wild sage being used in any other way besides smudging? I wanna find how I grow some this winter from my greenhouse and transplant them in the spring after the frost is gone. What's the current population of white or sacred sage like today? Are any efforts from the botanical and horticultural community to rescue that plant for future generations to come? Any way to regulate harvesting from their native lands? How can we inform our communities about that sacred plant and conserve it and pass on to others who hold the plant to high regard? If there's anything to add please jump in? Thanks!

Richo Cech has some advice about how to cultivate them from seed, by planting in ashes, and a couple of other tricks. traditionalmedicinals.com He gets them to grow in Oregon. I got one to grow in a pot in coastal California, near Santa Cruz, but the season wasn't long enough for it to flower, and I've had trouble getting them to start up here in the Rockies. But I am not a great gardener. For recovering the native populations, one of my pet theories is that some plants (and animals) that we think of as wild were actually semi-cultivated, and I suspect white sage is one of them. If you live in a white-sagey area, scarifying and spreading seeds under out of the way rocks while hiking would be a very good deed. If you grow some in your garden you will then have a cultivated source of seed. The leaves are too aromatic for cooking, in my opinion, but they would make a good medicinal sage. I don't know the tradition, though, other than burning.

Where could I find some strains, historic ones from the wild and used by many tribes? Do the ones in the wild grow about the size of a shrub? And do some sages lose leaves in the winter and become woody and bare?

When native people were free to steward the lands they would control burn the forests to keep them from encroaching on the prairies. I was informed that Camas planting would happen after these burns. Does this lend to the concept of the white sage seed setting/germination being aided by indigenous stewardship (someone said above "semi-cultivated")?

Shirley! How you been? You grown sage before? I'm talking about the California one?