About a year ago I dug up a large clump of lemon grass and divided it into much smaller plants. I used these small plants to edge the 'avenida' leading to the house. Here's what the grass looked like a couple of months after it was first planted.
It turns out that lemon grass is one of the plants that thrive in the hot salt-laden air at False Bluff. Each of the small plants I used as edging then, are themselves now big, fat clumps. As landscape plants they are impressive in their hardiness in the Caribbean environment, the speed with which they grow, and the show they put on.
And so the day after the new, short, no-wire fence was finished (see previous post) I began digging up and dividing other large clumps of lemon grass. I didn't have to dig up the grass edging the 'avenida' to the house; I had left several clumps to use later...and now was 'later.'
Directly beneath the poles tied to, and between, the posts of the newly created fence I planted a small starter-plant of lemon grass that I pulled from the large clumps I dug for this purpose. I put one of the little plants about every eighteen inches all along the 200 meters of new fence. You can hardly see the small plants now, but they'll make a stunning edging in less than a year.
Lemon grass is more than just a pretty face: it scents the air at dusk and dawn; and it makes nice tea, hot or cold. Locally known as 'fever grass' the tea is reported to reduce fever although from what I've been able to find online there's no supporting evidence for this.
It's also used to infuse distilled alcohol...like rum? I haven't tried it in rum but vodka infused with lemon grass is a well known and popular combination in other parts of the world.