33. Companion Planting for Citrus Babies
bumble bff for plants <3
Gossip Amongst Fronds is a free Sunday newsletter. If you love it, consider supporting it financially. For €5/month, you’ll gain access to my sporadic plant advice column, simple seasonal recipe, and occasional podcast where I interview like-minded creatives. Thank you for being here!
If you are new here, you don’t yet know of my love for citrus plants and my struggles with my own set of five babies. I have known about companion planting for some time but have never gotten my shit together enough to draw out a map. Also, I imagine companion planting as some witchcraft only perfected by those with an actual ground floor garden where the roots of the plants can commune with one another.
After a few battles with some pest that altered the colours of my citrus (mainly the yuzu baby), and not wanting to get into the world of copper fungicide or pest control that way (not good for ours or furbabies lungs if plants are inside, like these citrus are), I decided to foray into companion planting. Plants such as petunias, marigolds, fennel, dill, yarrow and more help deter insects and are good partners for citrus plants.
My citrus babies are planted in pots that line the shelves in the kitchen, the room with the most sun. I would place them outside, especially with the summer weather we have been having lately, but my balconies are already quite cramped with bougainvillea, viburnum, jasmine and passionflower. Plus so many wildflowers - I keep my front balcony mainly wildflowers - easy to maintain and good for pollinators. We also just bought a few begonia to fill our flower boxes, which are now basking in the sunshine.
During covid I got into the habit of ordering plants online, but it seemed a bit backwards since most of the plants came wrapped in protective plastic and/or way too much bubble wrap. So when stores were allowed to open again I began frequenting our neighbourhood plant shop, which is affordable, friendly and always full of surprises. It is where I bought my two recent citrus, Calamondin and Kumquat. By the way the Calamondin is flowering again and I am in love.
It’s interesting how different plants can help each other out in this way. I have heard stories of how trees in a forest can warn each other through their mycorrhizal networks. This is a bit different, bringing plants that deter insects, instead of citrus plants communicating with their roots to bring in their deterrent plant scent army, or something of the like. However, it is still interesting how plants can communicate. I love how the hanging grape vines and winter jasmine above the citrus cuddle on chillier days and stretch out on warmer ones. When I was still fostering ivy in our previous apartment a couple years ago, during the coldest winter where it snowed heavily (for here anyway), the two ivy hanging by a window completely entangled themselves in each other to keep warm.
Sometimes plant companionship isn’t the best partnering. Such as vines and trees in the wild. Although trees provide vines with the perfect structure to spiral upwards towards the sun and stretch out as much as they want, this can cause structural problems for the trees as the vines grow older and heavier. They can also wrap too tight and constrict the tree’s phloem (living tissue that fulfils the vital translocation process for trees).
As for communication in our plant-filled home, I’d like to think that the citrus babies will welcome their new buddies and the perfumed Calamondin blooms can draw in some pollinators, which will help the petunias flourish in their new home. They can hopefully develop their own love language between pots and enjoy the afternoon sun together.
Since this plant shop not a big box store (we try to avoid these, although fucking ikea sometimes is the only store that has the thing you need of course) it doesn’t always have exactly what I am looking for. When I went over the weekend I was looking for petunias, marigolds, fennel, any good partner plants for the citrus babies. I was able to secure some baby petunias and…a lot of other plants that were cute but not what was needed. So I improvised a bit:
I have tried regrowing fennel (along with celery and bok choy) many times by slicing off the bottom and placing them in water (swapping out the water every few days). It normally works for a couple inches of regrowth until the underbelly rots and starts to stink worse than compost. The rotting is a common problem in this damp nation, unfortunately many of my plants have succumbed to this fate because even in the midst of a drought - the humidity is still very very high. Alas, I could not find the other plants at the store so I decided to set up some fennel bottoms in an attempted stylish manner. Fingers crossed they hold down the fort until our local shop restocks their marigolds in the next week or two.
Update: after I wrote the above words I realized that a rogue dill had been growing in my mint pot so I tucked it in behind a baby petunia. I’ve been wondering if it was a fennel or dill or some look alike unscented plant since it was not giving off any scent to detect, until I just today I noticed it reeked of dill. It must have grown from last year’s dill flowers in a nearby pot <3 sorry dill, I underestimated you and your flowering this year didn’t last too long, if you try again I’ll baby you for sure.
last year’s dill
this year’s rogue dill
Some thing nourishing me this week:
A little day trip to Brussels
Natural wine, the sun, crazy eights
Passionflowers along the sidewalk
Flowering succulents
reflowering amaryllis on our front balcony
rainy sunday mornings and homemade chai lattes at our neighbourhood café
Happy Father’s Day to all the paternal figures out there <3 Has anyone else tried companion planting? Let me know if you have any tips or tricks up your sleeve <3 Wishing you all a wonderful week and happy summer solstice/litha! I’ll be hoarding strawberries from the farmer’s market, indulging in some floral bouquets, and having a picnic in the park to celebrate this wonderful time of year.
Know anyone else trying out companion planting?
Still not subscribed?
