Cymbopogon martinii
The size of the plant and of its bag can vary a little from the photograph — each one grows at its own pace. We keep them as consistent as we can.
Overview
A grass that smells of roses. Palmarosa yields an essential oil loaded with geraniol, the same molecule that perfumes rose and geranium, which is why it has been grown in India for centuries for perfumery. Crush a leaf between your fingers and you'll understand immediately. It's a clumping grass that establishes fast and can be cut from its first months.
Culture
Full sun and good drainage: it prefers sandy or loamy soil of moderate fertility, and once established it stands up to dry spells. Water while it gets going; after that it looks after itself. Multiply it by dividing the clump. Cut it often, because every cut makes the clump denser. Plant 50 cm apart.
Edible Uses
It isn't a cooking grass the way lemongrass is. The oil, though, is used in the food industry to give floral notes to sweets and drinks, and the dried leaf makes an aromatic infusion.
Medicinal
Palmarosa oil is used in aromatherapy and in skin preparations, and is traditionally credited with antiseptic and antifungal action.
Traditional uses for information only. Not a substitute for advice from a health professional.
Agroforestry
A support species of the medium stratum with an early secondary cycle, one of those that holds the ground while the trees have yet to close in. The clump binds soil on slopes and exposed edges, and every cut leaves aromatic leaf on the ground. It lives 3 to 5 years, long enough to see a system through its start. Plant 50 cm apart.