Hey all...i did see a few of these in bloom while in Miami last week. Mine have struggled since Ivan as many here have, but, today they are lookinf fine...i wish they bloomed more than once a year.....the dog loves to lay with the fallen seed pods.....they are almost two feet long....any other tropical friends out there contend with these? Both shots were taken about 5 minutes ago...
j
close up
second tree....you can see how large the seed pods, or, dog rattles get....
j
John, now you are educating in another area. I have never seen this tree. It is beautiful.
The fronds look just like Mimosa or Silk Tree as some call it. The seed pods are also long and messy. I have had one most of my life. They are short lived and brittle limbed but oh, so pretty.
Yes Christie, they certainly resemble a mimosa but the flowers are so much different. These trees make a giant mess in the yard and only bloom once a year, but, it has been in bloom for over a month and their beauty far outweighs their maintanence...you have had one most of your life? which? mimosa or poincianna? i remember seeing mimosas when i lived in th USA, beautiful yellow/purplish furry flowers....do they bloom all year?
john
I had the mimosa as did my mother when I was a child. They probably have about the same bloom time as the poincianna. The last two in my yard died at least 25 years ago. I still have seedlings popping up all the time. Don't want another so I just pull them up and pitch. Must stay viable forever.
Hope your feeling good today.
LouC
I LOVE the poincianas and the caesalpinias! I am growing a poinciana and a dwarf yellow. Both are in their second flowering. I thought they only flowered once a year as well, so when the pods got real dry, I collected them to give the seeds to my daughter. A couple of weeks later....more blooms! So now I cut off the pods. My two have been flowering this second time for well over a month!
Here's the dwarf yellow - not a very good pic, but it will give you an idea.
Gosh, Shari, wonderful. What is the pretty pink blooms? Going to research the poinciannas. Appear to be first cousin to the mimosa trees that grow like crazy here. If so wouldn't it stand to reason that the poin- would also grow here?
But, and it is a big question, would it become invasive as the mimosa has by cropping up all over East Texas in the woods. Also, anything that I might share with you I would want to do the same research.
The pink blooms are on one of my many desert roses. I just love them! I don't know about the invasiveness of the Poinciana, though someone here - I can't remember who now, maybe dale-a-gardener, was saying that they grow like mad in Florida. I can send you seeds if you would like....I get lots from my two babies. I tried growing some seeds from a gorgeous caesalpinia I saw in Pohnpei....posted in the other thread...they all rotted, so I'm trying to figure out what I did wrong. My two babies were from seed....so?????? Here's a pic of another of my Desert Roses
The poinciana grows here and is a beautiful tree, but it seeds all over the place!
In our garden we have several trees that are pests of the first order. Orchid trees, California pepper trees, mock orange, and African tulip trees to name a few. All (except the pepper) have lovely flowers, but are really hard to control and quickly become invasive. I am waging war with them all at the moment, in fact it is so bad I am considering the acual MURDER of these beasts!
Jenny - I sssssssssoooooo know whereof you speak! When I left California I swore I would never live by another Pepper tree, or ice plant - ever! Both drove me crazy. Such a mess!
So glad someone understands my misery! I paid quite a lot of moola to have the pepper trimed back and the thing responded by coming back bigger and better than ever PLUS new trees sprouting from every root running through the garden! I have to have a new septic tank put in (new law because of the Ohana) and I am going to ask the back hoe guy to claw the sucker right out of the ground at the same time!
Anybody who would like seeds of orchid trees just ask - I have millions just now begining to ripen.......
Here's my new headache: My Kamani tree. It's huge, takes up about half the garden and hides my Plumeria tree from the sun. But just as the Pepper shed sooo much, this guy shed's little green balls. About the size of golf balls, and heavy! The give a definate "thunk" when they hit the ground, and if they hit the house, the cats go crazy thinking we are being invaded by something they need to go get! I get these by the hundreds! Litterally! It's a very beneficial tree, but I wish it were somewhere else being beneficial, know what I mean?
Lol! Must look that one up tomorrow so I never get one! Poor little plumie, poor cats! It's funny how we have different problems here in the tropics, I am not used to such excessive growth as I have always lived where there has been a winter which helped control things. A whole new learning curve for me!
Hey Shari I think we are perhaps the only two people up at this time of night (well at least it is for me) but there again its tomorrow for you! Never could work that out! Off to bed for me!
Aloha!
Aloha Jenny...I'm gonna keep John company til he can get to sleep...storm brewing in the Caymans, and I think he's worried. Pleasant dreams...
Shari, appears things are the same all over.....the pecans hit the house and the dogs bark, bark, bark......littl pecan trees and oak trees are everywhere....have often wondered if I just left them would they grown into a forest. They are worse than weeds in the garden.
Hope the storm doesn't get organized.
Peacans always give me one of my fondest memories....my brothers and I picking up all the pecans and filling bags and bags of them....Mom made pie, Pop roasted some with chilies, and I made Penuche nuts....cooked em in butter, brown sugar and lots of spices....heaven! One of the few things we did as a family!
makin' my mouth water...
O/T have to recommend Southwest forum.....One Lucky Texan......he gives a new site of interest everyday.....things one would never find on their own. today is about kites. No way to tell you how great....have to see it for yourself. watch it and go to the menu and watch the interview.....makes my skin all goose-pimpley it is so wonderful.
I will check it out....sounds great!
WoooHoooo! Had to share! Was wondering where to post, and I remembered that John had started this thread. Perfect!..... I was out on the patio cleaning up after the rain just now, and I noticed that my bag of Poinciana seeds was getting moldy.....started to toss them, then noticed that several seeds with no mold had sprouted in the bag! Rushed them over to my daughter's house, since she had asked for the next batch, and she is planting them now! Picked up a few of the Caesalpinia seeds from Pohnpei that I had shared with her to try again, since all mine rotted. I'm excited!!
I have the Flamboyant or dwart type and I dont have any invasion from them. I have two and they are not very big because i prune them back some since they are besides the pool screen. I just love mine and they bloom all summmer up till frost. I have the orange, red and yellow one but have planted a solid yellow and it is about a foot tall now. I like the pictures of yours. Pods seem bigger than mine but like yours I have a lot of pods and gave away as many as I could. Sorry yours is so invasive. Fran
Fran, please descrive how you prune these....I would love to give mine a little "haircut", but I am so afraid of stunting the growth, or flowering....I just let them do their thing, so they are looking a little messy....what do you do?
I cut the limbs back when they stop blooming at the end of the stem. It dries up anyway so I just cut them off also when the pods form i cut the whole stem off and then it just grows new limbs from another joints. I dont have enough room for it to spread so that is why i cut it back and my husband gets mad as it gets in the way of mowing the lawn. They really grow fast anyway and I plant them in a pot and wait till they come up in about two weeks keeping the soil moist. Fran
Have you ever tried growing them from seed? Oh, and thanks for the pruning pointers...I get so carried away..... Anyhoo, I am on my second attempt with Caesalpinia seeds, and they have sprouted...but I am soooooo confused! The sprouts look like roots - but they are growing up out of the soil! And one seed pushed itself up to the top of the soil and is just sitting there all split open and green and looking ready to do something....is this normal or have I really done something wrong????
i dont know about that. I got my seed here in south part of town when going to yard sales and saw them growing and a homeowner gave me the seeds. Yea, I do love mine too not the thornes tho ha
but i just put them in a pot of soil and covered it with a little soil and kept it moist till they come up. dont recall the doing what you said yours did and forgot mine is dwarf variety. If you want some of my seed i can send them for the postage. Fran
Yours maybe the bigger trees
Thorns????
Well, I got my funny looking sprouts figured out! they were roots after all, but for some reason they were growing up, not down....The weight of the seed seemed to curve them up....so I poked em back down and they are doing fine....I hope. How very odd...never seen that happen before.
Don't you have thorns on your trees . These are dwarf trees I have. Sure wish I didnt have thorns but mine bloom all year whereas you said yours only once a yr. Sounds like an entirely different tree don't it. mine is going thru a new flush of new blooms now. They start and the bloom stem gets longer and longer and the pods form at the lower part of the stem so when it gets about over i cut them off. I would like to try a pink one but dont have seed for those. Heard the taller variety dont do well in central fla. Fran
Well guess what? I went out this morning to check and sure enough there are thorns on my dwarf, had never noticed them before. Forgot to check the Royal....
