Lemon Verbena Cuttings

Lemon Verbena has been with us for many years.  It is perhaps the most aromatic plant grown in gardens.  Becky uses finely chopped fresh leaves in fruit salads instead of sugar.  Add the leaves and allow time for the flavors to meld.  The taste of these salads is delicious beyond description.  Sharing with gardening friends made the plant impossible to find in local nurseries as a result of its new found fame.  We now rely on cuttings to keep this tender perennial in our garden.

Grown in climate zone 8 or higher, this plant will reach a height of six feet and display beautiful flowers.  Here in zone four each plant is limited to two seasons of growth before reaching its ultimate destination of the compost pile.  As amazing as it may sound, the scent of this plant will announce its presence when several year old compost containing it is screened in preparation for adding it to the garden.  These four plants spent the winter on a basement window sill and will be allowed to enjoy the rest of their time time in the sunny garden.  With this year's heat we may have a chance of flowers.

These two cuttings were taken much later than usual.  Falling behind is what we now do.  Heel cuttings are taken when new growth appears early in the growing year.  That bit of bark cut from the branch anchors the cutting in place and is the location of new root growth.  When roots appear in numbers and put on some growth, these new plants will be singly placed in one gallon pots and set out in the garden.  When cooler weather approaches the pots will be pulled from the ground and moved into the basement.  The important thing these new plants do is provide fresh cuttings in the spring.  During their second year they will also provide leaves for fruit salads.

This is our system for rooting cuttings.  Old plastic juice bottles with their bottoms cut off provide a moist environment for the leaves.  After some time has passed, the cap will be removed to allow limited air circulation.  Then the bottle will be removed.  If the timing is right, the cutting will continue holding its leaves upright.  If they droop a spray bath will be followed by a return of the bottle.

Lemon verbena is the most sensitive plant with regard to disturbance of its roots that we have ever encountered.  Early on we tried to dig up plants to take inside for the winter.  Total leaf droop followed.  It persisted for days and on occasion proved fatal.  If the plant did recover it held only a few leaves and sometimes did not last until spring.  Keeping the plants potted solved that problem.  These plants are widely available using mail order.  They are well worth the effort of keeping them in the garden this far out of their native climate.