Clary Sage

On a whim, I recently purchased a “good used copy” of The Ivington Diaries by Monty Don (2009). It fits in nicely with my collection of other gardening and nature books based on observations across a year, which I wrote about in January in a post I called A Year of Reading Month by Month.

(Don’t ask me about that reading project, I am woefully behind!)

Anyway, back to Monty Don’s book, which is sadly out of print. (Don’t even look at Amazon for a copy for a reasonable price. You’ll have to go to my secret source for used books. Even there, prices vary wildly.)

Anyway, The Ivington Diaries is based on garden journals Monty Don kept from 1995 through 2005 in which he says he “meticulously recorded everything planted, sown and harvested, every job done, every thing seen or heard that I considered of note” in his gardens near Ivington in the UK.

The chapters go from January through December but each day might be from a different year. I’m enjoying looking through his entries.

And now, let me explain the title of this blog post. In one of her Instagram reels, my co-podcaster, Dee Nash, described herself as “Sweaty Betty” because she had been out in the hot sun, sweating. I had never heard the term “sweaty betty” but found it funny when she said it.

Then later as I was reading through The Ivington Diaries, Monty Don titled the entry for 13 July 1998 “Sweaty Betty.” There’s that term again! He wrote…

“Now new sages have come into my blinkered life. I’ve realised that Salvia sclarea, or clary sage, has been around the garden for the past five years, husbanded by Sarah, without me ever bothering to engage with it, even by asking what it was. Should I admit that level of disconnection? I like its vernacular names Sweaty Betty and Hot Housemaid. Poor Betty, labouring into an unaromatic lather for a pittance. But her flowers are lovely in the right place, great spikes of creamy lilac, and big, floppy leaves.”

Monty Don, “The Ivington Diaries”

So Sweaty Betty refers to clary sage, Salvia sclarea. But I wanted to know why it was called Sweaty Betty, so instead of searching for “clary sage” or “Salvia sclarea” on the internet, I searched for “sweaty betty.”

Sweaty Betty turns out to be a clothing company in the UK and 99% of the search results are about it. And there’s a documentary called Sweaty Betty… “A tale of a big dream and a pig dream takes place in D.C. A family is determined to make their 1,000-pound pig the Redskins mascot. A few blocks away two teen fathers in search of a better life are presented with an unexpected opportunity.”

That’s as far as I got trying to find clary sage by its common name Sweaty Betty. And I did not even attempt to search for the other name, “Hot Housemaid,” for obvious “that’s going to lead down a dark alley no one should go down” reasons.

Finally, I found what I was looking for about clary sage by searching on that name and the botanical name. The “clary” part of the name is because it was once used to treat eye ailments, to clear the eyes. And the Sweaty Betty name? Clary sage was also thought to help increase the production of estrogen, easing symptoms of menopause, including hot flashes. No more Sweaty Betty if you use some clary sage in some form or fashion!

I’m now thinking about growing some clary sage—a biennial or short-lived perennial hardy in USDA zones 5 – 9—in my garden because who doesn’t want to point at a flower in their garden and tell everyone it’s Sweaty Betty or Hot Housemaid?

The Missouri Botanical Garden offers this information:

Easily grown in average, medium moisture, well-drained soils in full sun. Prefers moist, light, gravelly or sandy soils with good drainage. Tolerates drought. Avoid wet soils in winter. Intolerant of climates with high heat and humidity. Cut flower stalks prior to seed being set in order to coax a third year from biennial plants. Will self seed in the garden, albeit somewhat aggressively, in some climates.

Missouri Botanical Garden

Sounds like it will be a challenge to grow ol’ Sweaty Betty in my garden (high heat, humidity, wet soils in winter) but for the price of a packet of seeds… maybe I’ll try just once!

That self-sowing part? Well that gives me a little pause. I discovered that you can’t ship seeds for clary sage already to Washington state because it has begun to show up where it shouldn’t there, but Indiana’s gardening climate is a bit different…

If you have any experience growing clary sage aka Sweaty Betty aka Hot Housemaid aka Salvia sclarea, let me know if you have any tips or if this is a plant to stay away from!

Update added October 29, 2023. In Episode 31 of the 2023 Season of Gardener’s World, Frances Tophill toured the oldest Franciscan friary garden in Great Britain. One of the gardeners working on restoring those gardens said clary sage got the common name “Sweaty Betty” because the flowers smell like a sweaty person’s body odor. Now I have to grow it to see if that’s true!