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[IBC] The Big Sleep
As you may know, Operculicarya decaryi, the Madagascar elephant tree, is
occasionally recommended for bonsai because of its curious appearance & small leaves. Why a tree with neurofibromatosis is considered cute and a person with the same disorder hideous is beyond me. Anyway, I have had one for 10 years. I knew from reading up on it that it does not require a regular dormancy, but if it has a chill or other shock, it will lose all its leaves & take a nap. You stop watering it until it starts to grow again. I have had this happen, & it wakes up after a couple of weeks with no problem. Last November I decided to follow someone's advice & repot it in an oval instead of a round pot. The new pot was a little bigger, so I used a layer of coarse conifer mix and the rest regular mix, which it was used to. I trimmed the roots a little. I had repotted it in November before, & I had trimmed the roots before, but this time I must have done something different. As always, I put it under the fluorescent lights in my plant room, which normally encourages rapid growth. However, for some reason the tree had a snit & lost its leaves. I left it under the lights & cut back on watering. During this dormancy, I only watered it once or twice a month. It sat there all winter. I could see it was alive, as the cambium layer was bright green. There were recent pruning cuts that remained moist. Very few twigs shriveled. There were buds, but they didn't open. In May I put it outdoors with the rest of the tropicals & orchids, & it continued to sleep. I was beginning to worry, because I wrote a magazine article about this tree 7 years ago, & I would be terminally mortified if it died. However, one day in June when I wasn't looking, after the weather turned warm, the tree sat up, sneezed, & started growing again just as though nothing at all had happened. Right now it looks more like the spring Equinox than the summer Solstice, but who cares? It is very much alive. I think I will take it to the Flower Fest Saturday, where our club has a display. People usually find it amusing. Apparently there is no technical term for this behavior. You can call it culture shock, post traumatic stress disorder, or (ahem) persistent vegetative state. But as Pauline said, don't give up on a tree you think is merely dead. Wait until it is really most sincerely dead. Iris ************************************************** ****************************** ++++Sponsored, in part, by Kevin Bailey++++ ************************************************** ****************************** -- The IBC HOME PAGE & FAQ: http://www.internetbonsaiclub.org/ -- +++++ Questions? Help? e-mail +++++ |
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