Bay Tree Laurus nobilis Baby Bay

Baby Bay is a compact selection of culinary bay, and the difference shows in the internodes rather than the flavour. Growth points sit close together, the leaves are smaller, and the plant knits into a tight dome without being clipped into one. The leaf is still the aromatic bay leaf for the kitchen. That combination puts it where a full-size bay is awkward: clipped balls either side of a doorway, a low formal edge around a herb bed, and courtyard pots that need to stay the same size for years.

Container culture is where this one earns its keep

It takes the same conditions as the species, which means temperate and subtropical gardens, light frost on established plants, shelter from salt wind, and soil or mix that drains freely. Most Baby Bay is grown in a pot, and that is where the trouble starts. The failure is drought at the root. A bay in a container that dries out completely, even once in a hot week, sheds leaves from the inside of the plant and comes back thin and patchy, and a rootbound plant dries faster every year until watering cannot keep up. Use a coarse potting mix, a pot with real drainage, and judge by the weight of the pot rather than the surface of the mix. Repot or root prune every second or third year, shaving the outside of the rootball and replacing the spent mix. In the ground, keep water low to moderate once established and avoid the low spot where winter rain sits. For a low clipped edge, plant about 30 cm apart and shear from the first season so the base fills before the top does.

Choosing between Baby Bay and the alternatives

Against the standard bay tree this is a question of final scale. The species will make a screening hedge or a small tree and needs regular clipping to stay small, where Baby Bay stays small on its own and will never give you height. Pick the species for a hedge you stand behind or a standard with a trunk, and Baby Bay for pots, low edges and clipped shapes at knee height. Where the plant is decorative only, Tom Thumb is the tighter, quicker-shearing dwarf for a formal line, with a much smaller leaf and no kitchen use. Both sit in hedges.

Shearing a small bay to shape

Shear little and often. Two or three light trims through spring and summer hold a ball or a low edge far better than one heavy cut, and the plant stays leafy right to the base. Take the last trim by early autumn so the soft regrowth hardens before cold weather arrives. Feed pots with a controlled-release fertiliser in early spring and a liquid feed through the growing season, since a plant in a container has nothing else to draw on. Dry the trimmings for the kitchen. Check the leaf margins in spring for the curling and thickening that signals bay sucker, and watch pot plants in low light for scale.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 6 sizes, from 140mm up to 400mm, priced from $19.95 to $209.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. The smaller pots hold younger plants that cost less each and establish quickly, which suits hedges, screens and mass planting where the plant count adds up. The larger sizes carry several more years of growth on the farm and give height and presence straight away, which is what you want for a single feature position or a screen that cannot wait. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to fast growing screening plants.