Download or read book Growing Your Own Tea Garden For Beginners And Novices written by Dr Patrick Elliot and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grow plants for tea in a raised bed garden. The tall, bushy greenery is Camellia sinensis, tea plants. Many common perennials and herbs brew a tasty beverage, and most offer easy-growing personalities and eye-catching good looks. A true cup of tea features leaves from the tea plant (Camellia sinensis), which is an evergreen shrub or small tree hardy in Zones 8 to 11. You can find different varieties of tea plant, especially if you shop at nurseries that specialize in camellias. Tea leaves yield a tasty brew no matter which variety you grow, but you'll find flavor nuances associated with different cultivars. Tea is native to sub-tropical and tropical Asia, where the plants thrive at high altitudes with abundant humidity. Richmond's tea expert, Mark Ragland, shares that tea's optimal growing conditions just don't exist in the continental United States. "This plant thrives on 80 to 90 inches of rain annually at very high elevations. Unless you head to Hawaii, you won't find that microclimate," he says. But there are ways to grow tea successfully in less-than-ideal conditions. With a little horticultural sleight-of-hand, Ragland tends three happy tea plants in his own Zone 7b tea garden. By tucking tea plants against a light colored garden shed, reflected heat keeps plants toasty. Positioning them along the roof's dripline allows rainfall to pour freely onto soil around the plants. The native soil offers a low pH (4.6 to 5.0), which tea loves.