Just guessing that you may have a caterpillar visitor and that the small black 'bugs' are frass. Unless you've seen the frass move and then we'll have to go to plan 'B', lol.

I believe this is typical, especially if not grown in full sun. Some people, me included, cut them down to live nodes, about 8-12'' from ground in the spring. This helps, as does putting sturdier plants in front of them. There are newer varieties, like "Longin" which are a tad shorter and have stiffer stems. I'm not totally sure this is always true. good luck, Karen

My Black Sage is having some issues. Can anybody identify, from the photo, if this is a disease? or maybe it just does not like my soil? I want to save my Sage! Thank you, thank you very much. = ]

Buy the Sedge Hammer + and don't look back. The sedge Hammer + already comes with the surfactant included, follow the instructions to the "t". Don't mow your yard 2 days before or after the application and don't apply it when there will be rainfall within 4 hours. I would also recommend that you use a blue dye in your pump sprayer so that you can visually see what you've sprayed. In 48-72 hours you will start to see it working and after 7 days the leaves of the plant will start to become necrotic and die.