Not so happy...

In my last post, I commented on the plants that seem happy to grow in my sunroom. Unfortunately, not all my plants are thriving. For instance, even though my Cacao trees are adding new leaves, these are smaller than on previous flushes. Older leaves have brown tips. My chocolate trees are not attractive houseplants. My pygmy date palms have gone dormant. I see no new growth at all. My coconut palm died.

I have mixed results on the betel palms. One is adding a new leaf, the other seems iffy.

The results are in on my live oak experiment. I brought 25 acorns from Florida last November in sandwich bags. Half came off a sand live oak, half from a regular live oak. Unfortunately, all of the acorns sprouted before I could get them planted. Once I got home, I planted them in plastic cups filled with a mixture of half bagged play sand and half Miracle-Gro moisture control potting mix. Four of the sand live oaks sprouted, only one of the regular kind did. The remaining roots damped off.

The leaves are quite different on the two varieties. The sand live oak leaves are dark green, thick, and rounded; the live oak leaves are reddish green, elongated, and have more pronounced points.

I have acquired a bag full of plants and a box of seeds from Hawai'i. All were either preinspected and certified for export to the mainland, or were dried seeds that I had inspected by the Hawai'i Department of Agriculture. The HDoA on Maui is very near the Kahului Airport, but as of now, there is no sign visible from the road leading to the airport. There is a sign to some Department of Defense building. Perhaps the easiest directions start with 1) circle the airport; at the point it becomes a two-way road (rather than a one-way loop- -you are now headed away from the airport toward Kahalui) 2) turn left at the second left 3) make an immediate left onto unmarked Mua Street 4) The Department of Agriculture is in the first building on your left that faces Mua Street 5) go through the double doors on the left side of the building. From the Kahalui (toward the airport) direction, if you get to the T-Shirt Factory building (on the OTHER side of the street) you have gone too far.

Remember these very important items: A) Your seeds must be dry. There can be no pulp, pod, or greens stuck to your seeds. B) Bring your own box. You can buy boxes at the Post Office (or use the free ones if you ship your seeds priority mail) C) They will X-ray your plants and seeds at the airport at least twice. Grit your teeth and bear it.

The first seeds I planted are koa (Acacia koa). I soaked them overnight in a weak bleach solution in an effort to kill any fungi present. This does not harm intact koa seeds because they are quite waterproof. I scarified my seeds with pinch-style fingernail clippers. I tried to nip a tiny hole in the tip of each seed on the far end from where the seed had attached to the pod. Sometimes the seed coat cracked and exposed a bit of the inner seed itself. Either way, after soaking for another 24 hours, the seeds swelled up to three times their original size. This is expected and normal. Yesterday, I planted them into Jiffy seed starting mix in peat pots.

Today I planted 20 autograph tree (Clusia rosea) seeds. According to www.instanthawaii.com this is an invasive species. It might survive here indoors, but outdoors, I'm sure it would freeze. This tree bears a tough skinned green fruit. When the fruit is ripe it bursts open from the bottom in a star pattern. This exposes several cells of bright orange pulp. The pulp contains small (2x2x4mm) yellow seeds. Stripping the pulp from the seeds is not easy, but a sharp knife helps. I suspect the orange pulp is very tasty to birds.

More on my Hawai'i plants and seeds later.