Curry Leaf Plant/Tree Care

breezygardener Glad to see you are going to grow one of those! They are very easy to grow - that one I have is 13 or 14 years old, and I always have far more than I need!

I started it with a small rooting - not sure what the term is for these, but these plants "runners", growing baby plants off their larger roots. If you've grown Bay Laurels they do the same thing. Here's a photo of a baby curry tree a few years ago:
Baby curry tree 8-22. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

And if left in the pots, next to the first plant, more stalks are grown. I had to trim mine down to 4 or 5, as it was getting too large! Here it is, showing how it can spread:

Several stalks of the 12 year old curry tree. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Starting out, I would recommend a soilless mix like I use in sub-irrigated planters, as well as seed starting, and start in about a 4 gal fabric pot. Well drained mix, with about 20% perlite, about 10% worm castings, and peat, plus coir, if you use that. For fertilizer, Espoma has several organics I've used, that can be mixed in with the soil mix, w/o burning the roots. The curry tree is related to citrus. And they definitely do not like cold, so every off season I bring it inside when it is getting below 50°, trimming it way back. I keep it in front of a south facing window, and it doesn't really need additional light, though I'm sure it would grow more.

As for pests and diseases, outside I've never had any problems at all, and the only problem I've had, and only a few times, was scale insects, which accumulate on the undersides of the leaves, and are hard to get rid of, once they take hold. I trimmed much of the leaves away, then wiped the rest off with some alcohol. Some things I've done to prevent the scale from coming back again was to brush some tanglefoot on the lower 2" or so of the stalks, and I put some DE powder in the upper 2" or so of the soil mix. I think what caused the problem was the plant was stressed, from being severely rootbound - I didn't realize how bad, until I re-potted it; also, that was the last time I had it in a plastic pot. But the fabric pots don't lengthen the time that much between re-pottings - maybe 3, instead of 2 years. When re-potted, I have to trim a lot of the roots away, and the plant takes off quickly! But you won't be doing that for a while.

When starting out, you only have to let the plant grow to about 18", then cut the upper 2-3 inches off. This will help it branch out, which it does quickly.

Let me know if there are any questions you have, that I didn't answer here.