[IBC] Tropical Questions
 

Unbeknownst to me, I volunteered to do a presentation
of some sort to my bonsai club in June concerning
Tropical Bonsai, from which I know nothing. I have
ten green fingers and toes outside the house, but
pretty brown fingers inside the house, so I have been
looking around to see what’s available.
Here are some of my discoveries, comments, help
suggestions welcomed.

1) The fragile Grewia I bought on impulse is being
used as a landscape plant at the YMCA near my work
2) I always thought bougies were little sticks out
here, but saw several 15’ high with 4” trunks growing
outside.

So… besides the Grewia I now have a coffee tree with a
marvelous trunk, a 40% off scraggly bougie, a
shefflera, and a money tree. The coffee, shefflera,
and money tree are on the dining room table, getting
misted and getting filtered southwest exposure.

I want my bougie to be fatter. It is in a 2 gal pot,
not pot bound, semi defoliated. Our cold rains have
started, but might not hold. I have this one on the
front porch under an overhang with the cymbidiums.
Should I pot it up now and start feeding? Wait till
spring? Pruning?

The grewia will go into the lean to green house or
porch in December. It feels newly potted in a 1 gal
can. It has no taper, could be fatter, suggestions?

The pachera (?) money tree is a multiple trunk in a 6”
pot. I asked advice about this plant before with no
response. Is anyone working with these?

All advice on or off line appreciated.

Kitsune Miko



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"Expectations are resentments under construction."

Anne Lamott

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It has no taper, could be fatter, suggestions?

The Grewia will probably never have any more taper than it does now. I believe
you are in Zone 9, and I don't think Grewia is frost hardy. You might get the
trunk to thicken a little by growing it in the ground in a frost-free location,
or putting it in as big a training pot as you can carry. With Grewia, what you
see is pretty much what you get.
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." Yogi Berra

It has no taper, could be fatter, suggestions?

The Grewia will probably never have any more taper than it does now. I believe
you are in Zone 9, and I don't think Grewia is frost hardy. You might get the
trunk to thicken a little by growing it in the ground in a frost-free location,
or putting it in as big a training pot as you can carry. With Grewia, what you
see is pretty much what you get.
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." Yogi Berra