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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-032
Stevia
Stevia rebaudiana
A soft-stemmed member of the daisy family grown for leaves so sweet that dried and ground they replace sugar outright - the main compound is roughly 300 times sweeter than table sugar. It comes from the marshy grassland edges of southern Brazil and Paraguay and wants full sun on soil that drains well and never floods; overwatering rots its shallow feeder roots. Frost kills it outright, so it survives the winter only where the ground never freezes and is grown as a fast annual everywhere else. The leaves grow sweeter as days shorten toward flowering, so growers pinch off the buds and hold the harvest until the plant is nearly ready to bloom.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 10–11
- Soil
- Loam · Sand
- Moisture
- Moist · Moderate · Well-Drained
Vertical layer
Herbaceous- Soil pH
- 6.5–7.5
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 12–24 in
- Mature spread
- 12–24 in
- Plant spacing
- 12–18 in
- Root type
- Fibrous-shallow
- Spread pattern
- None
Keep exploring
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Aloe Vera
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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