Bay Laurel For Your Garden

Good Morning: I spent some time yesterday picking bay laurel leaves. I have 3 bay trees in my garden. I planted them 4 years ago and last year is the first that I harvested a few leaves from them for my personal use. I make soups a lot and love the bay leaf flavour. When I was a little guy my Mother used to make a buttermilk and potato soup and would flavour it with bay leaves. I love that flavour and finally about 4 years ago bought 3 bay laurel plants. They grew and now I can have enough leaves for my own use plus give some away.

I sprayed the trees with water and when they dried I started to pick the leaves. After I picked them I took the basket of leaves into my house and laid a terry cloth towel over my foot stool then spread the bay leaves out to dry. It will take about 3 or 4 days. After they have dried I will put them into small jelly jars and put them in my cupboard. I have a couple of friends that I will be giving the excess to.

Try them in your soup, you will like the nice flavour that your soup will have by adding a leaf or two. Don’t eat the leaves, take them out of the soup before serving because they do not get soft, just throw them away into your compost.

Gardeners in frost-free or light frost areas will find that Bay Laurel seedlings planted in the ground will grow into large trees, 40 feet and taller; but when kept pruned the Bay Laurel tree can thrive as a small bush. Bay Laurel can also be grown in a containers, the size of which limits the ultimate size of the trees. New plants are often started by layering,

Layering is a means of plant propagation in which a portion of stem grow roots while still attached to the parent plant and then you can detatch as an independent plant; or from cuttings, since growing from seed can be very difficult. I tried from seed once and none of them grew. Cuttings can also be difficult especially if you don’t know anybody that has a bay laurel plant. They are slow to root. If you do plant a bay laurel plant, it will probably sucker new plants. All three of mine are doing that, they are putting up new growth from beneath the ground and are producing roots from the side growth. This would also be a way of producing new plants.

Bay trees are difficult to start from seed, due in part to the seed's low germination rate, and long germination period. Fresh seeds with the pericarp removed typically have a 40% germination rate, while dried seeds and/or seeds with an intact pericarp have yet lower germination rates. In addition, the Bay Laurel seed germination period can be 50 days or more, which increases the risk of the seeds rotting before they germinate. Treating the seeds with Gibberellic acid will stimulate rapid stem and root growth and induce mitotic division in the leaves of some plants, and increase seed germination rate.

Thank you for reading my blog. Brad Vigansky