How to Grow Sweet Bay Tree at Home
Mostly grown in the oceanic regions throughout the Mediterranean, the Sweet Bay Tree is an evergreen aromatic shrub-like tree which you can easily grow in your home garden. Its dark green, lustrous leaves are used for garnishing on citrus desserts and in American-style spaghetti sauce. If you are fond of gardening in your free time, growing Sweet Bay Tree can be a real fun-filled activity for you, especially when your entire house keeps full of its aroma. However, you have to prone this plant from harsh frosty weather to ensure its proper growth.
Instructions
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1
Bring a nursery plant of Sweet Bay Tree from the market. Since this plant belongs to the Laurel family, it doesn’t like its roots to be disturbed. So, you better select an average size container for planting it.
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2
Cover up the drainage hole of the pot you brought for planting with a piece of broken crockery. A few small stones should also be placed at the bottom of the pot before pouring 3 inches of sand into it. Place the plant in the pot and add further potting soil to it so that its roots are covered by 4 inches from the rim.
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3
Keep adding more soil around the plant, compressing each layer of it by 1 inch. Fill the top of the pot with mulch and add water to it.
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4
If you have been practicing gardening before, you must know how important it is to take care of potting plants. The Sweet Bay Tree is only to be re-potted once in five years and not more than that.
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5
Every spring, you have to replace the top 3 inches of soil with fresh one and prune weak or dead leaves if you see any. You better avoid using chemical fertilizers for your tree and use the all-purpose household plant fertilizer instead. Manure and compost is the other option to improve the fertility of the soil.
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6
Keep adding excess water to the plant on regular basis. The Sweet Bay Tree needs a lot of water for healthy growth and you have to make sure it doesn’t fall short of the supply.
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7
You have to re-introduce the plant to the garden for one hour a day for a period of one week. Increase this time to 2 hours the next week and keep on working up until five hours daily.
