Tropical Zone Gardening: how many from Africa?, 1 by rjuddharrison

rjuddharrison wrote:
Thanks for the tips. I did notice the coin trunk on the Cooperi. You can see why I get confused , when the fiddles come out like cooperi, but trunk is like australis. I have spent hours browsing the the thousand fern tree varities! This tree is a very rapid grower, the fronds are burning daily despite trunk watering then twice fine spray from the tripod sprinkler. Sometimes I wonder if it's too much although a friend of mine who has the fuzzy fiddled one claims you can't water them enough in this heat. I put an umbrella over it during the day, but I'm suspecting the burned fronds may be a result of the sun reflecting off of the pond. wild guess.
It is a very large spanned tree, it tolerates more sun the older it gets, March and April seem to be it's favorite, and really speed grows during this time. The humidity increases in March and April, but still have cool nights.
I notice that watering the trunk relaxes the opening and releases the fiddles, but remains closed up in dry conditions holding on to the fidles until conditions are right. It's a facinating plant and my favorite. I nearly had heart failure when Hurricane Ike knocked down the fence and topped the trees, it was having a rough time, but it always perseveres.
This is a picture of it last December during a rare event here!