Citronella - does anybody in Brisbane have any for swap.

I'm in the process of renovating my chook pen so we can get a new set of chooks in December. The last lot got eaten by foxes some time back, due to the pen being insufficiently secure.

Anyway - durign summer my chooks were always bothered by mozzies. You'd hear them stamping their feed at night to try and get rid of them (poor buggers). My intention is to use chopped citronella grass in nesting boxes etc to try and reduce numbers of the mozzies flocking to the pen. I therefore want to start growing quite a few plants - so that at some point I can do this. I have heaps of lemon grass, but unfortunately no citronella.

Does anybody in Brisbane - preferably on northside - have a big plant or 2 which they are willing to provide some sections of to me, so I can get to a flying start.

I have various things that may be of interest in terms of a swap, including arrowroot culms (thanks to Jezz providing me with my initial stock, which has gone mental over the last 2 years), vetiver grass (if wanted for the swap - I can divide one of my plants and provide sections), heaps and heaps of pigeon pea seeds, seeds from a good variety of different chilli plants, delicious australian garlic (the pink skinned stuff) which I can spare a few bulbs of to get the person started on their garlic growing journey, gallangal, heaps of lemmon grass and maybe a couple of other things that are of interest to permies.

PM me.

Thanks.

 

Re: Citronella - does anybody in Brisbane have any for swap.

citronella grass?? not one I've heard of - - just googled and hte only ref is citronella grass is the same as lemon grass...

I thought the mossie repellent was made from the citronella - - citrus variety??

have you tried tansy as a mossie repellent???

 

Re: Citronella - does anybody in Brisbane have any for swap.

Nup - haven't tried tansy, but will look into it.

Citronella is definitely by the grass, not from citrus trees.

Citronella and lemon grass are from the same genus (Cymbopogon), but are different species. There is a lot of crap on the internet and you are correct that some people seem to think that citronella and lemon grass are the same thing. There are even some sellers who are selling lemon grass as citronella. Citronella is normally from the species citratus. A giveaway with the citronella is that the stems are very purple. You get a bit of purple with lemongrass, but nowhere near as much.

Interestingly, lemon grass and citronella are also related to Vetiver Grass, but they are a different genus. Vetiver is also said to have some insect repelant qualities, but I suspect most of that is from the oil in the roots, so less useful for my purpose than citronella grass.

 

Re: Citronella - does anybody in Brisbane have any for swap.

How much do you want? I have quite a large amount of it thanks to GardenLen sharing with me years ago.

Citronella grass will not stop mozzies by the way, it's the processed oil from the plant. Not sure how cut grass would go, might work.

 

Re: Citronella - does anybody in Brisbane have any for swap.

I've got one of GardenLen's old plants as well. Pity I can't tell the difference between it and the Lemon Grass planted beside it. Any obvious distinguishing features to help me identify them?

thanks
Derek

 

Re: Citronella - does anybody in Brisbane have any for swap.

Derek - the purple stems on the citronella should give it away. BTW - I was neglectfull in not mentioning that my arrowroot plantation also includes stock that you kindly provided me. Did you ever use that vetiver. The 15/20 or so metres of it that I planted along the first part of our gully line has gone great guns over the 2 years since I planted it. I cut it back periodically with the hedge trimmer and use it as mulch (not that the 15/20 metres of it produces a huge amount. I'd also planted a few on a higher bank at our place where the water runs down from the concrete pad outside our shed. A really heavy rain a little while before I planted prompted me to do so - as it took a few cubic metres of soil away from the bank. The vetiver stabilised it very quickly and I've just dug out one of these plants to divide and use for more planting along the gully. I planted 100 plus bits along another gully section (maybe 20 metres) over the last few days. Planted at about 30cm between centres for a quick result and will continue to do this along both sides of the gully and in a muber of other locations when I get time.

Baz - Whatever you can spare would be greatly appreciated. I can come around sometime to pick it up - have never been there so would be keen for a look. I used the Mrs to drop those comfrey roots off that time (or maybe I posted :? ). See I told you that one day here would be something that you could do for me . Amazingly that was 3 years ago this week.

Did the comfrey take? Funnily I let most of mine go, except one big plant - which I have just now divided to make a 20 metre hedge of the stuff in front of my veggie patch.

The drought and my lack of any rainwater tanks - has led to me putting my dirt gardenning to a side over the last few years, but I'm raring to get it going again, hence my renewed interest in some of this planting. The prompt has been that I installed my 22500 litre tank a couple of months ago and this is not 80% full, giving me plenty of water fo my the miserly use I need for well mulched gardens etc. I'll also be installing a smaller tank ont he shed over the next couple of weeks, which should further help me in ensurign I don't run out over the dry periods.

 

Re: Citronella - does anybody in Brisbane have any for swap.

Oh - forgot to say, eventually I inted to be growing heaps of it around the joint so that I can periodically cut some and maybe even mulch it and throw into chook pen (this will hopefully release oils and deter the mozzies for a bit).

 

Re: Citronella - does anybody in Brisbane have any for swap.

Citronella grass is much larger and as Veggie boy pointed out has purple stems and also gets a large purple seed head on a long stem.

Next time you drop over Derek remind me to show you the difference.

growing well and have been sharing them around, a lot of them are flowering atm.

 

Re: Citronella - does anybody in Brisbane have any for swap.

Hi,
I'm a newbie. I found the forum while researching citronella. I discovered that citronella oil is a great way to move ants back outside as they insist on living with us every summer. They seem to love that we've been mulching our place for so long and they're going to get more numerous as we're going mental with the mulch since starting to permaculture the place.

Can I be so bold as to ask for a cutting too? I'm on the south side of Brisbane.

 

Re: Citronella - does anybody in Brisbane have any for swap.

I can send you some seed if you send me an SAE
m

 

Re: Citronella - does anybody in Brisbane have any for swap.

where are the mozzies breeding? might be easier to attack that problem??

 

Re: Citronella - does anybody in Brisbane have any for swap.

Michael - not sure if that offer was for me, Bryan or both. I don't live far from Baz - so will get over there someday and collect some sections of plant. Thanks anyway for the offer.

Paradisi - We have a gully that goes through our place. It regularly dries up and then when it gets water in it again, the mozzies have a field day because all the fish are gone (though they do come back (washed down from a neighbour's dam further up the gully I suspect). The fish are pest gambusia, but they seem to do the job when present. Even when there is water in the gully and fish, there would be little pools of water that have mozzies breeding in them.

Bottom line is that I cannot fix the problem - as I'm certainly not the type to spray or anything.

To put it into context, the mozzies are not so bad that they bother is too much - though we do get the odd one in the house that attacks the children pretty bad and when sittin outside at night it is good to have some sandlewood or similar burning. They do however annoy the chooks badly, I can remember feeling very sorry for them as I heard the stamping of their feet in the night - must have been quite stressful for them.

 

Re: Citronella - does anybody in Brisbane have any for swap.

I have heaps of citronella grass seed
Just send a PM and i'll send my address and you send an SAE.

 

Re: Citronella - does anybody in Brisbane have any for swap.

Made a visit to Baz's place. He is doing great work out there and has a great range of permie plants growing and many of the techniques in action.

Turns out I've got citronella . What I thought was lemon grass seems to have been citronella afterall. Therefore, I am now the proud new owner of a clump of lemon grass :lol: as well as some water chestnut which I'm bung into one of my aquaponics grow-beds for now to see how it goes in that situation.

Thanks very much Baz for sharing your knowledge, providing me with some further inspiration and the plants

 

Re: Citronella - does anybody in Brisbane have any for swap.

Sometimes nurseries confuse them especially as one form of citronella oil comes out smelling very lemony; another has that more musty lemon fragrance and sets seed here. Whereas I have never seen "lemon-grass" set seed here.
You have to be a good botanist to differentiate grasses.

There is another citronella smelling plant some times incorrectly called "Balm of Gilead" it is a little bush.

I have Lemon Verbena, Mabel Grey Lemon geranium, Lemon Myrtle, and citronella grass around the pool. More in hope, than in any real mozzie repellent function.

 

Re: Citronella - does anybody in Brisbane have any for swap.

https://www.greenharvest.com.au/Plants/lemongrass_info.html

Available from Green Harvest: October 2008

Available from my place all year round pickup only.