Luck with "southern" plants
- Subject: Luck with "southern" plants
- From: Doobieous d*@yahoo.com
- Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 03:46:40 -0800 (PST)
The title is referring to Corymbia ficifolia and
Cordyline indivisa.
A while ago I planted a singel Corymbia ficifolia
seed. It's sprouted, and boy is it slow. It's FINALLY
sending up its true leaves after several weeks of
sitting there. Maybe it was growing roots? Of course,
I wont' know until years from now what flower color it
will have. I hope I luck out and get a nice deep red.
Either way, they are handsome trees, I really like how
they look, and they appear a lot different from the
Eucs.
The Cordyline indivisa seeds I had asked about have
*all* sprouted. They're apparently very fertile
plants. I simply put them in a bag with potting soil,
and placed it in a sort of shaded spot. I noticed the
seedlings today.
I've done a careful transplanting so as not to break
their primary root tips. I moved them into a tray
(actually, one of the plastic bowls from a salad I
bought at a fast food restaurant). Hopefully these
will make it past this stage.
I suppose if I can keep them growing past two years,
the C. indivisa will be a milestone in growing plants
from seed for me, which is something I've never really
done. Even moreso since true C. indivisa is not sold
around here, and from what some of you said when I
inquired about germinating these, they're tricky
plants. I think these should do well here, as my town
is in the path of most of the fog around the Monterey
Bay. The weather is never very warm, and when it warms
up it doesn't last long. Heat loving plants do poor
here or they grow a lot slower, and for plants like
canna, they bloom a lot later than in warmer climates.
The trick is amending part of the yard to be full of
organic matter and moisture retentive. I might have to
create a big sunken bed, unless anyone has other ideas
(the "soil" in the back yard is pure sand, with a
little organic matter and silt... my city was built
atop old chaparral/sand dune habitat).