Growing Lamb’s Ear Plant as Ground Cover

Growing Lamb’s Ear Plant as Ground Cover

Lamb’s Ear plant (Stachys byzantina), a native of Turkey, Armenia, and Iran with tow common names such as “lamb’s ear, or lamb’s ears”, a dusty gray plant and named from its fuzzy leaves, resembles the shape of real lamb’s ear. They are a herbaceous perennials grown for its silvery gray-green, color and texture of their soft suede foliage rather than their flowers.

They are  heat resistant ornamental plant classified as an herb also tolerates in a partial shade area during its growing period. If you intend to let them bear flowers,  they bloom in late spring to early summer, so you’ve to time your planting to reach the late spring to early summer season.

Most gardeners used this plant as borders from other flower and foliage plants and is ideal as ground cover and is recommended for children’s garden due to the soft feel characteristics of their foliage.

Growing Requirements

Sowing seeds. Prepare your germinating tray or seed box and fill them with the soil mix you prepared or bought from any agriculture store in your area. Sow the seeds 1 – 2 seeds in every hole. Water them until fully established.

Land preparation. Prepare the field where you’ll plant the seedlings. Using grab hoe, spade and shovel make plot beds. The length depends on the size of your area. Locate your plots in a open field exposed to full day sunshine. Mix compost and manure to the plots to enrich the soil.

Transplanting. When the seedling have at least two true leaves, transplant them in your prepared plots distanced at 60 – 80 cm between hills after frost have been over. Water them immediately not to get stressed after planting. Continue watering until they are fully established.

Note: Lamb’s ear can be also propagated by root cuttings to maintain their varietal characteristics over the seeds.

Mulching. Add a mulching materials around the plant base to maintain the soil moisture and to ward-off weeds interruption during the plants growing period. 

Plant maintenance. When the plants begin to spread, trim them to restrain the spread not to cover the entire area. If not trimmed, Lamb’s ear easily spread in the garden. By using a garden shear,  trim them regularly to regulate their spreading ability just enough to maintain them for ground cover purposes. Make the area well drained to make your Lamb’s ear grows vigorously and looks attractive as a ground cover.

Plant nutrition. Lamb’s Ear is a hardy plant, once they’re fully established and the soil have been supplied with compost and manure, they can withstand without fertilizer application.

Pest and disease control. Slugs, aphids and mealy bugs are the most common pests of Lamb’s Ear. They can easily be controlled by any insecticides. Or you may use a homemade insecticides by following this formulation; per gallon of water, mix 2 tablespoons vegetable oil, 2 tablespoons baking soda, and 2 tablespoons powdered laundry soap. Mix  the solution properly and spray directly into the affected plants. Continue until all are totally eradicated.

Powdery mildew is the only fungus disease that attacks Lamb’s Ear that causes some white spots on the leaves. To control them, apply a fungicides following the instructions on the label.

Happy gardening!