Bay Trees and Bay Laurel
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Bay trees are the evergreen that does three jobs at once: a clipped shape by the front door, a dense dark green hedge, and a supply of bay leaves for the pot. Laurus nobilis is slow, tidy and long lived, happy in a container for years and tolerant of sun, light shade and frost once settled. Choose the full sized tree, a dwarf form for pots, or a selected hedging strain, and clip it twice a year.
Which size? How many?
Size ladder: what each pot looks like on arrivalHedge calculator: plants per metre, pricedHeights on arrival sit under every size on the product page. Freight is quoted with multiple freight companies and passed on at cost.
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Baby Bay Laurel Laurus nobilis 'Baby Bay'
6 sizes, Tube to 500mm
49% offFrom $194.95$382.95Unit price /Unavailable -
Bay Tree Laurus nobilis ‘Miles Choice’
7 sizes, 140mm to 150L
43% offFrom $18.49$32.49per plant, packs of 10Unit price /Unavailable
More information
How to choose a bay tree
For a hedge, a standard or a tree, Bay Leaf is the species itself: left alone it reaches about 6m tall and 3m wide, clipped it stays whatever size you keep it. Bay Tree is a selected strain grown for hedging and topiary, with even growth that takes a sharp line. For a pot on a balcony or a courtyard, Baby Bay Laurel is a dwarf form to about 1.8m with the same aromatic leaves on a plant that stays in proportion to its container.
The trade-off is speed against patience. Bay is slow to moderate, so a hedge planted from 200mm pots takes three or four years to close. Buying an advanced size gives you the shape straight away.
Where bay trees work
Bay comes from the Mediterranean and suits most of Australia: full sun to part shade, free draining soil, and frost to about minus 5 degrees once established. It is at its best in cool and warm temperate gardens and does well in the subtropics given drainage and air movement. In pots it tolerates a few missed waterings. It dislikes only waterlogged ground and deep shade, where it grows thin and leggy.
Classic uses are a pair of clipped standards or cones in pots either side of a door, a formal hedge to 2m or 3m, a screen along a boundary, or a single tree beside the kitchen for the leaves. See the plants for topiary and shaping for companions that take the same treatment.
Planting and spacing
Space hedging plants 60cm to 90cm apart, closer for a quick low hedge and wider for a tall one. Dig in compost, plant at the depth of the pot, water in well and mulch, keeping the mulch off the trunk. In a container use a quality potting mix in a pot at least 40cm across, and move up a size every two or three years. The plants for pots range shows the companions that share a terrace with a clipped bay.
Care basics
Water new plants weekly through the first summer and let established trees dry out between waterings. Feed in spring with a slow release fertiliser. Clip in late spring and again in late summer; a bay cut back hard in spring shoots again from old wood. The pest to know is the bay sucker, which curls and thickens the leaf edges and turns them yellow: prune off affected tips and the new growth comes clean. Scale and the sooty mould that follows it are treated with horticultural oil. Pick leaves at any time; they dry well on a tray in a warm room.
Common questions
Can I cook with the leaves from a bay tree I buy here?
Yes. Laurus nobilis is the culinary bay. Use the leaves fresh or dried, and remove them before serving.
How fast does a bay tree grow?
About 30cm a year once established, slower in a pot. A hedge planted at 60cm spacing from 200mm pots closes in three to four years.
Will a bay tree survive frost?
Established plants take frost to about minus 5 degrees. Protect young plants and pots for their first two winters in cold districts.
Why are the leaves on my bay curling at the edges?
Bay sucker, a small sap feeding insect. Cut off the curled tips and dispose of them, and the plant grows out of it.
