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Re: Growing Lemon Grass

>I bought a lemongrass plant and now I'm wondering what to do with it.

I have have been growing some variety of lemon-grass for over 10 years:
--outside in a spot where it gets full sun in the middle of the day but
morning and afternoon shade.
--in rather heavy clay soil (what we have in my part of the Berkeley flatlands).
--once established, watered once a week for a couple of hours by a single
1-gallon dripper.
--with no additional fertilizer.

I notice that:
--while it makes a nice clump, it has not spread (perhaps because the
surrounding area in  not watered).
--it does NOT seem very subject to snail damage but is always bothered by rust.
--between the rust, some random snail munching, and having virtually no new
growth during the cold months, it gets pretty ratty looking in winter; I
would NOT try to use it as an important landscape plant.
--although significantly damaged, it did survive the 1990 "big freeze"
where I had a few nights at 20 and 21o F.
--Two attempts to divide, and transplant the clump were disasterous. In
each case, I lost 90% of the plant. (Perhaps if I had just moved it,
instead of trying to also divide it, things would have gone better.)

Katherine Pyle
Berkeley, California, USA
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