Sweetgale - (Myrica gale)
A wetlands powerhouse, Sweetgale grows slowly upright to a mature size of 5ft tall and wide in a dense, deciduous shrub. Fragrant blue-hued oblong leaves emerge after yellow catkins on sexed male and female plants. While commonly dioecious, the plant has documented evidence of monoecious habits, where plants may change sex year to year. Catkins, fruit, and leaves are dotted with a yellowish aromatic resin which has been used as insect repellent, and candle or soap fragrance. Native American peoples developed these uses of Sweetgale resin, as well as the waxy leaves for aromatic smudging, or fresh leaves for use as water resistant lining of basketry. Pregnant adults should not consume any part of the plant, including inhalation of smoke from leaves or resin. Sweetgale is known to be allelopathic towards some other species, specifically the highly invasive Bohemian Knotweed. This plant plays well with willow, cottonwood, Douglas spirea, and Labrador tea to stabilize riverbanks, lake shores, and other boggy areas. Not to mention - nitrogen fixing; a suckering and spreading habit; food source for beavers; and pillar of salmon habitat: Sweetgale is a rockstar of restoration.
*Sun to Part Shade (6 or more hours of direct light)
*For wet locations of any soil type. Can withstand brackish water and nutrient poor soils.
*Bogs, wetlands, marshes, water margins such as riverbanks or lake shores, estuaries. Not reliably successful in dry soils.
*4-5 tall and wide, individual plants can sucker and widen into more plants in a hedge-like form over time.
*Sold Bare Root
*Sold as a bundle of 5
Disease or Pest: No known major issues
Image Attributions:
- © "Beautiful, fresh, vibrant leaves of a bog myrtle after the rain" by Dace Znotina via Canva.com
- Laval University, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
- © "Flower of Bog Myrtle with green background" by CreativeNature_nl via Canva.com
- Daderot, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Sten Porse, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons