Gardening Basics - Monthly Tips

Monthly Tips

February - Plant of the Month

Laurus nobilis - Sweet or True Bay

I get the giggles when I look at the little jars of bay leaves at the grocery store - about 15 pallid leaves for $7-11 (I checked). At my house, with 2 bay trees, each 10-20' tall, one never wants for bay leaves, quite the contrary. Bay tree prunings go in the chopper here, inducing vague feelings of guilt but I just can't find any recipes that call for 2-3 large branches of bay - maybe if I roasted a whole pig?

Laurus nobilis, sweet bay or true bay, is a nice-looking, drought tolerant, evergreen tree that hails from the Mediterranean. It can reaches 40' but tree authority Michael Dirr (from Georgia) says 8-12' makes a fine specimen. (So growing a fine specimen around here seems to require nothing but sun, good drainage and neglect.)

True bay doesn't have showy flowers but it makes a nice background plant, the leaves smell delicious when you break them (a bit like juicy fruit gum to me) and you never need to worry about having a bay leaf available for your spaghetti sauce.

When I first started gardening I was told that around here bay trees periodically get killed back to the ground in a cold winter. Consequently, I kept a bay tree given to me as a gift indoors in a pot for many years - I couldn't risk it out in the cold! Ha. Then I moved to a house with a young bay tree about 3' tall. Ten years later it's probably 15' x 10' and I'm still waiting for that cold spell that will cut it down. Needless to say my pampered baby got stuck in the ground several years ago and it has grown like mad.

Sweet bay likes sun and good drainage. Plant them where they'll have room to grow, or keep them in a pot which does an excellent job at stunting their growth (I should know). Water your bay tree for a few years and then forget about it until you need some leaves for cooking. They'll be there for you, mountains of leaves, winter or summer and you can laugh when you remember your pre-bay tree life, when leaves had to be paid for and carefully parceled out. And if you come across a recipe calling for 300 bay leaves, let me know.

I recently read an article about someone who started a garden club based on the book club model. "What a great idea," I thought. I read on and realized that they just talk. How unsatisfactory. I'd much rather be part of a garden club where you actually get something done. Good food also seems like a necessity.

Wouldn't it be great to have 5 people, led by a garden coach, come work in your yard for 3 hours? Including yourself, that's at least 12 hours of quality work (figuring we fritter away up to an hour talking, eating and deciding what to do).

I'm definitely in. Not only do I get a pile of work done in my garden twice a year I get to help people learn to garden, learn some things myself and eat good food. What could be better?

So here's how I figure it would work. The club would consist of 6 households (realistically that's one person per household but you never know, a spouse might join in). The geographic area would be limited so that everyone is within 20 minutes of each other. We would meet once a month, probably on a Sunday afternoon, that way we would cycle through everyone's yard twice per year. We might want to double up in spring and fall and skip December and January. In addition to bringing your garden tools, you would also bring something yummy to share. Lastly, if there is something people are really interested in learning about (diseases, lawns, perennials, whatever) I could bring along some info.

That's it. If you're interested, send me an e-mail. Assuming I get a few takers, I'll get back to you toward the end of the month and we can set up the first meeting at my house and get working (and eating).