SWEETGRASS 
orders by phone (650)
325-7333 
We offer two kinds, the Regular (left)
and the Supershamanistic™ (right), photographed on June 1st.
Sweetgrass (Hierochlöe odorata) ---
seed stalk life-size, very important for positive identification.
DESCRIPTION: SWEETGRASS is a winter-hardy aromatic perennial grass normally found growing in rich, moist soil from Alaska to Newfoundland in full sun, and is also native to northern Europe. The peoples of both Europe and North America consider this plant sacred and sweetgrass plays an important part in sacred ceremonies on both continents. The leaves are dried and made into braids and burned as a vanilla-scented incense, and used to make baskets which retain the vanilla-like scent for many years. High-yielding grass, can produce up to 3,000-4,000 pounds of dried braids per acre.
There are several species of grass that have been called "Sweetgrass" including a South Carolina grass (Muhlenbergia filipes) also used to make baskets, and a shorter European grass called sweet vernal grass. Our Sweetgrass (Hierochloe odorata) has a vanilla scent, and its long leaves are used to make dried braids and woven into baskets.
The Mystery of the Sweetgrass on two continents. Sweetgrass is what is called a "circumpolar" plant, which means it grows in both the North American and European continents around the Arctic circle. There are at least three possibilities about how sweetgrass got to North America: (1.) plants spread across both continents when Eastern North America and Europe were joined as a single continent, or (2.) live plant were carried by Native American peoples when they crossed over the Asian/Alaskan land bridge, or (3.) plants were carried in boats in prehistoric times from northern Europe to North America. In any case, it is the only sacred plant shared by peoples of both Europe and North America. Since plants do not normally produce viable seeds, it could only occur on both continents by these three methods.
There's probably no truly "wild"
sweetgrass populations in the world, because all
of the populations of the North American and European sweetgrass
may have been "cultivated" and selected for the length
of their leaves over the last 10,000+ years of human/sweetgrass
interactions. Of course there are wild stands still growing in
the wild, but when you take a careful look at those plants, they
might be remnants of a "garden" within a Native American
village site, still growing where they were originally planted
hundreds or thousands of years ago.
The plants have been selected by humans to be cut at least
twice a year, otherwise the unusually long leaves will smother
the plant. A similar form of human selection, to make a particular
part of a plant grow unusually long, has been done to the Saffron
crocus, whose stamens are harvested for the spice "saffron"
and the stamens are now so long, they hang outside of the petals
and no longer function as stamens any more.
No studies of the genetics of the "wild" sweetgrass
populations have yet been done, but I predict that when such
a study is completed, there will be a great deal of uniformity
between populations; and the movement and travel of the population
in association with humans may also be discovered.
We sell live sweetgrass root-plugs. When you first receive them, plant them
in 8 inch diameter plastic pots in potting soil, and keep in the
shade for a week while they establish new roots. About a month
or two later, once they have filled
up the pot, plant them out into the garden, spacing plants
about one foot apart.
Another way to grow them is to plant them in a deep flat about three to four inches deep, or in a shallow pot. An "azalea pot" works well, which is a pot that is wider than it is deep, like eight inches across but only 4-6 inches deep. This method of growing the plants in shallow containers helps them spread faster and make more leaf growth. The roots will spread horizontally and then grow upwards to make more shoots.
CLICK HERE TO SEE PHOTOS
from our month-by-month growing of a single plant. By August, a single plant growing in an 8 inch pot,
is shown above, with two foot long leaves, ready to harvest.
CHECK YOUR SOIL! The garden area where the
sweetgrass is to be planted, must be well-drained and not clayey.
Check by digging the area up, watering and then the next day,
take a hand full of soil in one hand, and squeeze it into a ball.
When you open your hand, the ball should break up at least a little
bit, and not stay as a solid ball of clay. If it doesn't break
up, add coarse sand and/or perlite until it does.
WATERING should be done
thoroughly, keeping plants constantly moist but not overwhelmingly
wet. Never let the soil surface dry out completely, as dryness
or drought is the major cause of death of a sweetgrass patch.
The leaves will curl when the soil is getting excessively dry,
and if still green, can revive with a thorough watering.
FULL SUN is best for plants
that are grown north of New Jersey, Iowa, Colorado, and central
California. When growing in the South, Midwest, Southwest and
southern California, we suggest keeping plants in part shade,
especially in an area out of the afternoon sun from 3 P.M. onwards.
Do not grow the plant indoors.
FERTILIZER is needed at least 2-3 times during the growing season with a balanced fertilizer. If you use chemical fertilizer, a lawn-starter fertilizer is best, but we do not recommend chemical fertilizers because they can "burn" the plants.
For each plant, we fertilize with two tablespoons each of blood meal and bone meal, every month during the growing season.
The plugs that we offer have been organically grown and not sprayed with any herbicides or fungicides. For solid beds, we fertilize with 5 lbs. each of blood meal and bone meal per 100 square feet, each month during the growing season, plus once a year, we add 5 pounds of the mineral Potassium sulfate or Sulfate of Potash.
The plants will sometimes show when they have a need for the different fertilizers, for example when the leaves start turning yellow, adding iron and nitrogen in the form of blood meal, will usually cure that problem and green them back up within a week or two.
The lack of phosphorus, which is supplied by bone meal,
can be clearly seen when the bases of the leaves or the leaf tips
start turning purple.
Mild and severe need for
bone meal
Dried braids with purple color at base, showing mild and
severe need for phosphorus, which is supplied by bone meal, feeding
plants once a month. Notice that the plants were harvested
by pulling out by the roots, which is not recommended---instead
cut them and leave a few inches of stem above the ground.
HARVESTING PLANTS. The plants
we send you should spread to cover one square foot in 12 months
and up to two square feet by the end of the second season. You
should be able to harvest at least one braid's worth of sweetgrass
per plant after three months of growth in the summer.
If you look carefully at the wildcrafted Canadian braids, they have been pulled up by the roots. However, with your plants, it is best to cut them, rather than pull them up by the roots, so as to leave about 3-4 inches of stem above the ground. This will allow the plants to regrow quickly, and it is then possible to get a second harvest before autumn. We can get up to three cuttings a year from established plant: early June, early August, and October just before they go dormant. In summer, the plants grow nearly an inch a day!
DRYING AND YIELDS. Spread
out your cut sweetgrass in the sun in a layer no thicker than
an inch, and turn it every 30 minutes until dry. In dry, hot,
low-humidity weather, leaves will dry in about four hours. Braid
the grass when nearly dry.
A solid patch of sweetgrass will yield one pound of dried leaves
for every 12.5 square feet of bed. One acre solidly planted
and properly fertilized could yield 4,000 lbs. of dried leaves,
or about 65,000 braids.
If the wholesale price of a wildcrafted
braid is $2 per ounce, then one acre could yield $65,000 worth
of braids, one of the world's most valuable field-crop plants.
EXTREMELY WINTER HARDY, WILL GROW UP TO USDA ZONE
1 in the USA. Cold will probably not affect plants as they
will go dormant to the roots in cold weather and resprout when
the night-time temperatures get back above 45 degrees F. Sweetgrass
plants grow normally in the wild up to the Arctic Circle!
>>>>Never grow plants indoors overwinter -Roots require a winter and early spring dormant period, of at least two months, with the night temps. drop at least into the 40s.<<<<
ABOVE: A bed-layout for braid-harvesting.
The "Weed-barrier"
fabric can be ordered from McConkey
Company in Sumner, Washington, (800) 426-8124 and comes in
4 foot and 6 foot widths, and the rolls are 300 feet long. The
March 2004 prices and shipping weights for this fabric was: 4
foot wide $55.32 and weighs 35 pounds, and the 6 foot wide $75.43
and 46 pounds, with UPS costs extra. This fabric lasts 10-20
years in coastal California, so is an excellent investment. You
roll out the fabric and leave an eight-inch gap where the sweetgrass
plants grow, between the rows of fabric.
SEVEN THINGS THAT
CAN KILL SWEETGRASS PLANTS:
(1.) Drifting or accidentally sprayed herbicides.
Grow your own, in a protected area.
(2.) Weeds, especially European grasses and broadleaved weeds:
so weed at least once a year.
(3.) Lack of water, especially in summer, plants usually
need water at least once a day.
(4.) Clay soil, especially sticky clay, which makes it difficult
for the roots to penetrate.
(5.) Water-logged garden soils. Plants like sandy to sandy-loam
soil and really dislike clay soil or water-logged soils. When
the soil is wet, if you squeeze it in your hand into a ball, you
should be able to crumble it apart easily. If it stays in a tight
ball, you probably need to add coarse sand (like sand-box sand),
pearlite to your sweetgrass garden spot.
(6.) Trying to growing plants indoors overwinter.
(7.) Not fertilizing, at least twice a year.
PLANTS are extremely long lived, and if you plant them in your garden or
field, expect, due to their extensive root systems, they will
be difficult to remove: area should be permanently dedicated to
sweetgrass. Since sweetgrass is clonal, individual plants may
be among the oldest living organisms on the planet, perhaps 100,000
to millions of years old, making them nearly immortal.
PLANTS produce seed but most
of those seeds are not usually viable, and starting from seed
can take 4-5 years to get the same sized plant that only takes
1-2 months to produce from a plug. Once your plants are established
and spreading, you can spread it faster by cutting out plugs from
your patch.
HOW TO VISUALLY TELL SWEETGRASS FROM OTHER GRASSES.
Other than the vanilla scent, visual clues your should look
for are:
1.) The base of the leaves, just below soil surface is broad
and white, without hairs.
2.) The base of the leaves measured one inch from the roots
on leaves 12" long or more, the bases will be more than 1/10th
of an inch in diameter and less than 2/10th of an inch. The average
of 20 leaves was 0.138 inch.
3.) The undersides of the leaves are very shiny, never
any hairs.
4.) The undersides of the leaves are flat, never v-shaped.
5.) The leaves curl quickly when dried in the sun. Other grass
leaves remain flat when dried.
6.) On leaves 12" long or more, they are at least 1/4"
across at their widest point. The measured range of 10 leaves
was 0.25" to 0.40", with an average of 0.328"
5.) The flowers of sweetgrass are distinctive and unique.
OTHER SUGGESTIONS
1.) Weed your sweetgrass area at least twice a year.
First in early spring, when it is easy to tell the sweetgrass
from the cool-season weed grasses, and then again in summer when
the summer-time, warm-season weed grasses become apparent.
2.) Fertilize at least once a month during the growing season,
and more often if you are cutting grass for braids frequently.
If you are wild-crafting this plant, leave a new offering of at
least five pounds of organic fertilizers per every 100 square
feet harvested, along with your tobacco offering. The wild
stands of sweetgrass are disappearing, perhaps because nutrients
are removed from the ground when braids are harvested, and the
soil's fertility, especially the phosphorus, is being depleted
over time.
3.) If you have any turf grasses or other grasses growing near your sweetgrass patch, put a barrier between them. You might find rolls of plastic or metal lawn edging material, that can keep the turf grasses from growing in and mixing with the sweetgrass patch.
About 30 species of Hierochloe/Sweetgrass grow around the
world, even in the tropics at high elevation. Click here to see a map of the other Sweetgrass
species, from around the world.
ORDERING: We dig and ship plants about once a month, from spring
to about October 30th. You can check the San Francisco
weather forecasts (we are 25 miles south) in your local newspaper,
or on any weather web pages, to see when the first shipping date
will be: when our nights get consistently
above 54 degrees F.
We are taking orders for the first summer 2008 digs, which will be May 2008
All plants are shipped via the Post Office, so if you have a PO Box, that address is preferred.
If you are taking them to Pow-wows or don't have time to plant them immediately, they can survive in their plastic bags for a couple of weeks, as long as the roots are kept moist. When we ship the plants to you, their roots have moist potting soil protecting them and are not shipped bare-naked, which allows plants to start growing quickly once you plant them.
However, if you are ordering 10 or fewer plants for delivery in spring or summer, it is best to plant each plug into 8" diameter plastic pots in potting soil, keeping them in the shade for a week, and then introduce them to morning sun and then as much afternoon sun as they can take.
Planting them in the pots first, allow you to easily move them around the garden, until you find the perfect sun/shade conditions that the plants like best.
Let them grow for a month or two in the pots before you plant them out into the garden. In the North, they will want sun all day long. In the Southwest, South and Southern California, they will absolutely need afternoon shade.
Let each plant grow and fill the 8" pot, like you see on our web page that shows how a plant grows month-by-month, and when they've grown to a large size, you can plant them out into your garden, spacing each about one foot apart. Sweetgrass is very fast-growing in the summer.
Plants ordered in autumn can be directly planted into the garden---just make sure to put them in an area that is free of other grass weeds, and carefully mark their spots, so you can find them next spring.
STATES and Territories where our plants have been successfully grown, since 1990: AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY, and the USVI
California Nursery Stock
License 1323.001, family-owned business established in 1972.
PRICES - (Effective January 12,
2008) - We are taking orders for the SUMMER 2008 digs.--One free sweetgrass dried braid is
sent with each plant order:
Here is the summer dig schedule: May 20 (new
date), June15, July 15, August 15, September
15. Please indicate
which dig you want to be in.
--REGULAR strain
sweetgrass plants $10 each, 3/$18, 6/$32, 10/$50, for 2008
delivery. Prices include
Priority mail via the post office. If you want Express mail delivery, please add the
prices below.
--SUPERSHAMANISTIC ™ sweetgrass plants $12 each, 3/$20, 6/$36, 10/$55, 20/$100. Prices include Priority mail via the post office. Plants grow about 3-5 times faster than the regular strain. This increased size and speed of growth is a natural difference in grasses called "polyploidy" which is not caused by fertilizers. The fastest-growing natural strain in North America, discovered growing in our beds many years ago. There is no difference in the scent of either strain. If you want Express mail delivery, please add prices below.
EXPRESS MAIL DELIVERY. Suggested for plants shipped in summer, especially to Texas, the South and the Southwest. Optional shipment via Express Mail if you add the following: $16 for the first plant, and $1 for each additional plant.
---CANADIAN WILDCRAFTED BRAIDS. Harvested from the northern Canadian forests, braids are 5/8-3/4" across and average 16" long, about 1/2 ounce each. They are nice and green, and a life-sized scan of part of a braid is shown above. PRICE: $25 for Six, $40 for a dozen. Prices include shipping via the post office to USA, Canada and Mexico. Overseas customers, please ask for the shipping costs for braids.
---DRIED ORGANIC-GROWN
LOOSE LEAVES. Harvested from our own production beds,
loose dried leaves average 8-12" long, for basket-making
or other uses, vary in color from green to brown. PRICE: 1/2 pound $30. Only shipped in August, but please order early,
because we always sell out every year. Prices
include shipping via the
post office to USA, Canada and Mexico. Overseas customers,
please ask for the shipping costs for loose leaves.
California customers ordering either plants
or braids, please add 7-1/4% sales tax if you live outside
San Mateo Co., or 8-1/4% if you live within San Mateo County.
---GIFT
CERTIFICATES available for holidays or birthdays, and
plants will be shipped at the proper time of year for the local
climate. A card is sent to you, to give to the person, so they
know what plants they will be receiving, and when they will be
arriving.
Click here to see
sweetgrass growing
Order blank for faxing orders, or mailing checks & money orders.
customers, can call or fax orders if $20 or more---
Phone (650) 325-7333, Fax (650) 325-4056.
Home page of our main catalog with 200+ seeds and books
at: www.ecoseeds.com
Updated May 7, 2008. Prices subject to change seasonally without
notice.
