My son has just given me a dozen small Jacaranda trees he has grown from seed. They range from 3 - 12 inches in height. Jav propagated a lot more but his success rate wasn't high. From the 100 seeds that shot he only has about 20 trees left. They are potted in small pots.

Does anyone know where I go from here? I want to transplant them into larger pots, but what fertilizer do I use? Jav's plan is/was to grow trees to sell, so I don't want to plant them out. Mind you they would look spectacular lining my driveway!

Can anyone help?

Melita

I had to Google this, and I am glad I did! I have never seen one, much less heard of them before. Wow! That is one beautiful tree!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacaranda

I found this, which talks about fertilizing young plants.

http://secure.cartsvr.net/catalogs/catalog.asp?prodid=4768270&showprevnext=1

http://www.au.gardenweb.com/forums/load/trees/msg07193856670.html

http://www.fuf.net/tree_plantings/pages/V59H60.html

http://www.theflowerexpert.com/content/aboutflowers/tro...owers/blue-jacaranda

Hope some of that is helpful.

Thank you so much Meg, your help has been wonderful. The au.gardenweb forum is just brilliant. One of the contributors has planted 60 Jacaranda trees in Chidlow, WA (Aust), which is just a few Ks (kilometres) from my place. They had some great advice on how to nurse the trees through the frosts of winter. I've added this site to a growing list of 'favourites' that have all come from BC!

I'm also forwarding the gardenweb address to my Mother. Mum is a very keen gardener, a member of a couple of local Gardening Clubs and the family oracle on all things horticultural. I feel quite proud being able to send some info her way for a change!

Jacaranda's are lovely aren't they? I am lucky to have 3 in my garden. When the flowers drop I have a beautiful purple carpet over my paving for several weeks. That's usually followed by a carpet of red when the bottle brush trees drop their flowers.

You can see what a bottle brush flower looks like here:

http://www.imagesaustralia.com/bottlebrush.htm

They are native to WA and the bees love them. The only downside to having both Jacaranda's and Bottle brushes so close to the house is getting the children to sweep the paving. With a good easterly wind it only takes a few minutes to look like the job has never been done!

Thanks again for your help.

Melita

Melita! Sweep those blossoms onto a dust pan and put them in the compost pile! Our yard used to have a lot of clay from fill dirt, not typical Michigan soil. I used to have the kids take the grass clippings to the compost bins, I added vegetable peelings, blossoms from deadheading, old potting soil from transplanting houseplants, etc. You should see our soil now! When the neighbors tomatoes are wilting from the summer heat, ours are thriving! We used to have no worms; now DH loves to garden so he can talk to his earthworms (and here I thought my DDIL and the grandvermin were bad! LOL), some are 6 or 8 inches long!

I would love to come to Australia someday and see all the beautiful flora, not so much some of the fauna- I don't do snakes!

So right about the compost Meg. I have been very slack (lazy) in not doing it. Everyone is encouraged to mulch here because of the dry climate and constant worry about water supplies. In summer the mulch and compost makes a huge difference. I often buy pea hay for the summer, but it usually depends on how busy I get. Pea hay is horribly expensive as well, so thats another incentive to do my own compost. A good job to organize over winter!

I'm with you on the snakes. They freak me out as well and I was born here! We have Dugites on our property, I almost drove the car over one on the driveway last spring, so I get a bit anxious about gardening over summer.

Warning: Don't look if you're snake phobic.

http://www.avru.org/general/general_dugite.html

We also have Bobtails in the garden every summer and I'm not over fond of those either. They like to lurk near the back door and I have been known to step on them! Shudder. They're not poisonous but they can give a nasty bite. On the up side there's an old wives tale that if you have 'Bobby's' near your house they keep the snakes away. I'm hoping.

Bobtails:
http://www.pilbarapythons.com/bobtail.htm

I would love to visit the US as well, though I know its not without danger. When my son went to work in Colorado at a ski resort a couple of years ago I gave him a big list of things to be careful of! Especially the bears!! He laughed and pointed out that bears hibernate in winter. LOLOLO I knew that... I'm sure I did.. I was just being an over anxious mother. Luckily Jav survived the dangers of the US, much to my relief. I didn't even think about avalanches until he was there. We don't get snow here, so it all sounds horribly scary to me!

I'll let you know how I go with the compost.

Thanks, Melita

quote:

Originally posted by Melita:
When my son went to work in Colorado at a ski resort a couple of years ago I gave him a big list of things to be careful of! Especially the bears!! He laughed and pointed out that bears hibernate in winter. LOLOLO I knew that... I'm sure I did.. I was just being an over anxious mother. Luckily Jav survived the dangers of the US, much to my relief. I didn't even think about avalanches until he was there. We don't get snow here, so it all sounds horribly scary to me!

Now that my son and DDIL are moving to Alaska, I am doing exactly the same thing! I think it is a universal mother-thing! He was commenting how glad he was that he wasn't going to California because it is next to impossible to get a concealed weapon permit. I asked why he felt the need for such a permit, and he responded crime. At least he could take his hand gun with him to Alaska.

I laughed and asked why he would need a concealed weapon there, they are going to an island barely two miles wide- how much crime can there be? Oh, no, he needed it for the bears. This I found ludicrous! Even I, who firmly believes in some gun control, who owns no weapons, who is not opposed to hunting for food, but not for trophies, even I know if an angry grizzly bear is charging, five or six shots from a hand gun is not going to slow him down at all! He must really think his mother has led a sheltered life! LOL

Hopefully, when you get to the U.S., you will visit Michigan. We only have one poisonous snake, a very small rattlesnake, that is extremely shy. Would love to show you around. The only snake I have ever seen in my yard is a little garter snake that lives near the compost pile. As long he eats the slugs, I am content to leave him be. I always make lots of noise so he has time to hide, my early warning system (LOL), when I need to go near the bins.

Oh, and there are no snakes in any of the quilt shops around here, so we'd be safe there! LOL

http://www.geocities.com/shavano08/mi.html

Thanks for the pics and info! I have heard of Jacaranda trees through my reading of Harlequin Romances - the Aussie writers often mentioned them, but in those days, I did not go near a computer except to dust!

Wow, that is a gorgeous colour - hey, Meg, don't you wish you could have one? It's your favourite colour!!

Melita, I hope yours all do well, and way to go to your son for starting them! HOpefully his business will take off.

Gerda

Rattlesnakes! I can remember watching old cowboy movies with my father and there was always a Rattlesnake terrorizing the hero! And that suspenseful scary rattle...shudder. As a young child they terrified me more than any of our own snakes! LOL

quote:

Originally posted by Meg
I laughed and asked why he would need a concealed weapon there, they are going to an island barely two miles wide- how much crime can there be? Oh, no, he needed it for the bears.

LOL I would have believed him! LOL I'm glad I didn't think of that option when Jav was in the US! I might have encouraged him to arm himself!! LOL Hand guns and concealed weapons are illegal in Australia and not something I would ever normally contemplate or endorse...but Motherhood does strange things to you! The first time Jav went to the US, he backpacked on his own down the West Coast to Mexico then up the East Coast to New York, catching trains and buses. I think bears and rattlesnakes were the least of my worries on that trip! No wonder I'm so grey!

Meg, I fear Jav may have shelved his tree production ideas for a while. He has only kept a couple, farming our the rest to my mother & I. Mum got the Jacarandas that look the most sickly, Jav thought they needed her tender touch! I've also have his propagating green house and some seeds, origins and species unknown, to try out. I'm not much of a gardener, I weed, prune and water but that's about it. So I've got a lot to learn.

Melita