The Garden Club
January 15, 2004

Featured Plant
Bay Laurel
Native to the Mediterranean region, this is the Laurel of history. Ancient Greeks and Romans crowned victors with wreaths of this Sweet Bay Laurel.

Bay Laurel (Herb - Laurus nobilis. Also known as 'Sweet Bay Laurel') This handsome and useful evergreen shrub is easy to grow in any climate. The attractive deep green leaves are 2-4 inches long and very aromatic. They are used both fresh and dried in cookery to impart flavor. Appreciated anytime as a hostess or house-warming gift.

Easy-to-Grow
In the North, Bay Laurel grows outdoors in summer and indoors in winter – makes a great houseplant! Pot in light, well drained soil. It can be trained as a tree. While wintering indoors, keep cool and dry in a brightly lit spot. Move outdoors in the summer to a partially shaded location. Fertilize with SeaMate™ or other water soluble 100% organic fertilizer. Grown outdoors year-round in the South. Hardy outdoors in zones 8-10.

In The Kitchen
The leaves of the Sweet Bay Laurel have long been a staple in American kitchens. They are used in hearty, home-style cooking. For instance, when you are making bean, split pea and vegetable soups, meat stews, spaghetti sauce and chili, the Bay leaf adds a more pronounced flavor. Remove Bay leaves before eating a dish that has finished cooking.

Available Year-Round
During winter months, we’ll ship Sweet Bay Laurel whenever temperatures are above freezing between your location and our nursery. Shipped as a 6-inch branched plant.

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Garden Club Questions & Answers

Question: With all of this alternating warm and cold weather my bulbs have poked through the soil, as have my peonies. Now they are forecasting record setting cold.  Are these plants going to be okay or is there something I should be doing?

Answer: Emerging plants have a lot of sugar in the sap and they freeze at much lower temperatures than water. Sometimes the tips of the leaves that were exposed freeze off, but as long as the flower buds of the bulbs are still below the soil (as I suspect they are), the plants will be fine.

The situation is similar for peonies. They are incredibly cold tolerant until the leaves start to unfurl. Then they are very much subject to late frosts.  It is unusual for peonies to be showing at all this early.  On the peonies, a precautionary cover of 1 to 2 inches of mulch is probably a good idea.

Question:  I saw your pictures of the Winterberry Hollies in last week’s newsletter and I ordered some.  Then I was driving down the street and I saw a tree that looked like the same plant. Does Winterberry come as a tree?

Answer:  There is a form a hybrid Winterberry that grows to about 12 foot and is sometimes pruned as a tree. It is called “Sparkleberry”. There is also a closely related species called Possumhaw (Ilex decidua) that can grow to 20 feet tall. It is possible you saw one of these.  The berry effect is about the same as Winterberry.  However, I suspect what you saw was a Hawthorne tree, perhaps “Crataegus Winter King”.  Hawthornes have been loaded with berries for months, making a spectacular Winterberry-like display.  It grows to about 20 feet and is naturally a single-stemmed vase shaped tree with silvery stems bearing ¾ inch thorns.  It is best planted in a dry spot.

Question:  On your radio show I heard you recommend feeding houseplants with SeaMate™ year round.  I thought houseplants were supposed to have a rest period with no fertilizing in the winter.  Which is correct?

Answer:  SeaMate™ is a long-lasting, slow-release fertilizer and bio-stimulator.  In mid-winter a hiatus in your SeaMate™ fertilizer program will do no good.  The houseplants are now using the SeaMate™ that you applied over a long period, months ago.  The hiatus logic that holds for quick-release, shot-in-the-arm, blue-water, chemical fertilizers cannot be applied to slow-release products that are rich in natural organics.

Question: I took advantage of your recent sale on Chesapeake Blue Crab Compost. How long can I store it and can I apply it now? I was thinking of coming getting more and doing the entire vegetable garden.  Can Chesapeake Blue be used on all vegetables or are there some that should not have Chesapeake Blue?

Answer: You can spread the Chesapeake Blue on the garden now but obviously you cannot till it in until the ground unfreezes. You can also store it in bags for 2-3 years at least (until the bags deteriorate. The product itself won’t deteriorate, although it may get lumpy.)  I can’t think of a vegetable that would not benefit from Chesapeake Blue.  My experience as been that Chesapeake Blue improves the flavor and the productivity of any vegetable I have tried it on. 

If you are going to use Chesapeake Blue liberally over your entire garden, please remember to cut back or eliminate entirely other fertilizers.  Chesapeake Blue is usually sufficient.  If you find your vegetables need help part way through the season, you can always use SeaMate, FertilGRO™ or Garden-tone.  But do not till in fertilizers with the Chesapeake Blue at planting.  Incidentally, I have done best with tilling Chesapeake Blue into the garden in winter at a time when the ground isn’t frozen and too sodden and then again at planting. This double tilling method seems to cut back significantly on the weed population.

Question:  About 15 years ago I planted a 300 foot Leyland cypress hedge for privacy.  Last fall’s winds reeked havoc with my hedge.  I had a tree service stand them up and stake them, but subsequent storms have knocked some of them over again along with some of the others.  Spraying for bagworms has turned out to much more costly than I expected.  So I am thinking of taking down the Leyland cypress and putting in a hedge of something with flowers. I really don’t need anything more than 8-10 feet tall.  The Leyland cypress got too big and I also want something that is really low-maintenance and will not require pruning.  Our site is exposed to the cold west wind and it’s in full sun.  It’s at the top of a hill so the soil isn’t the best.  What do you suggest?  Should I have the stumps of the cypress ground out?

Answer: Your not going to find a flowering evergreen that will perform in your conditions.  I suggest you consider a mixed planting of deciduous flowering shrubs that will provide interest at different times.  Mixed plantings work well if you have the depth to plant more than a single row of shrubs and can instead plant in clumps.  (A single row of mixed shrubs rarely matures handsomely; if you must plant a single row hedge, choose just one species type of plant for the entire length of the hedge.)  If there is some view you need to particularly hide, you can strategically mix in some evergreens.  In winter, the naked stems of the deciduous flowering shrubs provide about 50% visual blockage and usually 50% is sufficient to do the job.  Some shrubs that you may want to consider (if you want to stick to a mono-culture of a single row of plants as a hedge, any one of these will also do): Viburnums (several types), Lilacs (Syringa), 'Little Girl Magnolias', Beauty bush (Kolkwitzia) Rose of Sharon (Hibisicus syriacus), Smoke Bush (Cotinus) and Burning Bush (not the dwarf form).

You probably can avoid the expense of stump grinding if you cut down the Leylands. They will not re-sprout and a satisfactory planting can usually be made working around the flush-cut stumps.  As the Leylands have such poor root systems, pulling or digging out the stumps will also work.  If you opt for this latter method, be sure to leave a 4-5 foot trunk so there is something to which you can attach a tractor and chain for pulling.

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© 2004, Carroll Gardens, Inc.