How To Grow Laurel Outdoors?

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Bay leaf is a versatile and incredibly healthy condiment, so it's easy to find in almost every kitchen. To always have enough useful lavrushka, it is not at all necessary to carry its stocks in whole packages from the store - it is quite possible to grow this wonderful culture in your summer cottage! In the northern lane, laurel, of course, will not take root, but in the middle lane, and even more so in the south, it makes sense to try! Where to start, and how laborious is this process in general?

We plant seeds in the ground

Laurel seeds are usually planted in the ground towards the end of autumn - they will winter in the soil, and their germination starts around the end of spring, when the weather is stable with a temperature of at least twenty degrees. The grown seedlings are necessarily thinned out, and then, in the fall, they are transplanted to permanent places. You can, of course, first grow seedlings, but this process is much more laborious, and the results are usually the same.

How to grow laurel?

In the southern regions, the handsome laurel grows in the form of luxurious tall trees, and in areas characterized by lower temperature values, it almost always takes the form of shrubs - it is in this form that the laurel is much easier to endure winters: if it begins to freeze, it is exclusively from above, and its root the system will remain alive and will continue to produce a lot of new growth every year.

Best of all, laurel will feel and grow in open ground in the southern territories (in the Transcaucasus, Krasnodar Territory and on the Black Sea coast). However, this does not mean at all that it cannot be planted in the middle lane - this plant can boast of a fairly good frost resistance: the laurel calmly tolerates a drop in temperature to minus fifteen degrees. But if the thermometer falls even lower, then it is already worse: at twenty-five degrees with a minus sign, the overground parts of the laurel completely freeze out, and sometimes the roots along with them. So in regions where the air temperature can drop below minus fifteen degrees, it is important to take timely care of proper shelter for the winter.

In general, laurel is completely undemanding to soils, however, experienced summer residents note that it will feel best in a nutritious and fairly light soil. If the soil on the site is far from similar characteristics, it is possible, during planting, instead of the soil dug out for the construction of holes, to fill them with peat with sand and solid deciduous soil in equal parts or a mixture consisting of two parts of sand and humus with turf and light deciduous soil (the latter ingredients are taken one part at a time). It is not forbidden to add a small amount of wood ash to the holes.

As for lighting, ideally the area where the laurel grows should be well lit - only in this case the handsome laurel will turn into a stately tree. He is not afraid of partial shade, but in this case he will look like a lush bush, no more. By the way, this is the most optimal option for middle latitudes - it is the shrubby form of laurel that tolerates winter much better! To form shrubs and stimulate the development of underground buds, the root collars of plants are recommended to be buried up to ten centimeters.

How to care?

Laurel requires minimal care. Watering should be moderately frequent and sufficiently abundant, according to the season (usually they are resorted to approximately once a week) and without waterlogging of the soil - a drought-resistant laurel will much more easily accept a moisture deficit than an excess of it.

Starting from mid-spring and until approximately the end of the summer season, laurel must be fed with complex mineral fertilizers. This is done twice a month. In addition, once a season, additional fertilizing with ash and phosphorus can be carried out.

As for pruning, it will be best if it is necessary at the time of harvest, and it will be much easier to cover these trees later. In the middle lane, the bushes are usually cut off dramatically, leaving only small stumps, the height of which does not exceed ten centimeters. And the forming pruning begins to be carried out only when the plants reach the age of two. As a rule, they are held at the end of June or at the very beginning of July, trying to give the luxurious laurel crowns the desired shape - pyramidal, spherical, etc.

Would you like to try to grow laurel on your site?