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gotu kola - Centella asiatica
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Posted by paradisi Sunshine Coast (My Page) on Tue, Jan 24, 06 at 23:21
| can anyone give me some hints on the best way to grow gotu kola in SE Queensland?/
thanks
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Follow-Up Postings:
RE: gotu kola - Centella asiatica
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| It grows best in shade or partial shade. Soil should be fairly rich and sandy, and must be kept constantly moist. It tolerates almost any kind of soil, but does best in alluvial soils, and prefers hot, humid climates. It may die in drought but return after rain. Truth is, once you've got it, you've always got it - in superabundance! It can quickly become a weed, and can become an environmental thug. (Roots will grow from every stolon that touches the soil - and there's a stolon every 3-4cm or so along every runner!) The climate in SE QLD is perfect for it. |
RE: gotu kola - Centella asiatica
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| hey daisy found that one out the hard way LOL. Its funny its classed as a weed here in queenslqand thats why the health food industry has made a killin out fo it because we have the most prolific growth of the stuff here in AUS. cheers |
RE: gotu kola - Centella asiatica
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| It's possibly not appreciated that Centella asiatica is a very common native plant in eastern Australia, as well in warmer parts of Asia. Here in Sydney I come across it in a great variety of habitats. It can be rather weedy but is not difficult to control compared with many other weeds. It is not certain that our local plants are genetically identical with the ones cultivated as gotu-kola. They generally appear to have much shorter leaf-stalks, commonly only 1 to 5 cm. With such a widespread species it is likely that regional races could have evolved. They probably have similar medicinal properties regardless. |
RE: gotu kola - Centella asiatica
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| I just bought a little plant of this on the weekend. I was surprised by how nice it tastes. I think I'll be including a little in salads from time to time. |
RE: gotu kola - Centella asiatica
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| jamus_s - be careful it's an amazingly powerful herb. I broke my back in 78 playing rugby - but the doctors didn't find the break until 2002. For 25 years I was treated and prodded and poked for a soft tissue injury. I've been on powerful pain killers for most of that time and now consider myself amazingly lucky to have survived the treatment. A couple of weeks ago I bought a tiny gotu kola plant and let it grow a bit before I tried taking the two leaves a day dosage. I stopped my pain killers and took two leaves for four days and had the first trouble free, pain free days I've had since I was eighteen. Just to check the experiment I stopped the gotu kola and went back onto my normal regemine of pain killers when I needed them and my back stiffened up and the pain returned. That second part of the experiment is now over (four days each is a fairly scientific test) so it's back onto gotu kola tomorrow and fingers crossed. It's also pretty good for arthritis so I'm told. |
RE: gotu kola - Centella asiatica
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| tonyfromoz - its been a while since you told us all about the native form of centila asiatica - just thought you might like to know the following: I've got it growing wild in my garden and it is much more bitter than the gotu kola version of the plant and it doesn't seem to have the active ingredients that are prevalent in gotu kola. I've tried the gotu kola and had almost instantaneous and wonderful results for the problems with my back and the native version doesn't seem to have any benefit at all. |
RE: gotu kola - Centella asiatica
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| I almost wish I had a sore back so I could take it. :) |
RE: gotu kola - Centella asiatica
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- Posted by hedwig QLD Brisbane (My Page) on
Sun, Mar 19, 06 at 23:10
| and where did you purchase the seeds?? SE-QLD |
RE: gotu kola - Centella asiatica
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| Hi hedwig - I got the plants from the Fruit Shed in Warana - - they haven't had any for weeks so there must be some gardenwebbers living up here too. |
RE: gotu kola - Centella asiatica
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| I wish I had your luck growing these things-- I tried the gotu 3 times, all with shade, moisture etc; also brami- the first one lived (struggled) for a year, and then chucked it as well. |
RE: gotu kola - Centella asiatica
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Paradisi,
I was wondering if the plant growing wild in your garden is Gotu kola (Centella asiatica) or Hydrocotyl bonariensis. I have Gotu kola growing here in a pot, but when I was living in coastal NSW I had a wild pennywort (Hydrocotyl) growing in the garden which is an introduced species that was brough in to stablise the sand dunes. It escaped INTO our gardens! (How is that for a turn around.) Hydrocotly looks like a large version of Gotu kola, but is bitter to taste. I think it was native to Mexico, and I recall that it was being tested as a possible supplemental food source for famine striken countries. It probably does not have the same medicinal properties as Gotu kola. |
RE: gotu kola - Centella asiatica
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| thanks carol_af - - but it's definitely not hydrocotyle - the leaves on my wild gotu kola are smooth - and the pics I could link to for the nydrocotyle are serrated thanks tony |
RE: gotu kola - Centella asiatica
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| Centella asiatica might be confused with some of the native Hydrocotyle spp. as well as with the introduced H. bonariensis. But H. bonariensis is very distinctive in its large, almost circular and PELTATE leaf, i.e. with the stalk attached in the middle rather than at the leaf margin. The Centella leaf has a neat 'pie-wedge' cut out of its near-circular outline where the stalk attaches, and small, widely spaced teeth on the leaf margin. Most Hydrocotyle species have a crenate (scalloped) margin. The only other plant easily confused with Centella is the native Viola hederacea. The way I distinguish this is by the stalk attachment forming a sort of downward funnel - and of course by its flowers! |
RE: gotu kola - Centella asiatica
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- Posted by andy_sa South Australia (My Page) on
Fri, Jun 30, 06 at 3:58
| Paradidsi - just wondering if you'd tried tea made from the dried leaves, and whether you found this either more or less effective than the fresh leaves. |
Source for live Gotu Kola in NSW?
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| I will be visiting a friend in NSW for 1 month and would love to try Gotu Kola for severe arthritis and lower back pain. Can somebody recommend a source for live plants in NSW? |
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