I have a Monkey Puzzle tree that is now blocking a path. When is the right
time of year to prune it and is there anything I need to know?
Thanks

Can you tell if it is a him or a her. If a her try to find ways to take cuttings for multpication with a view to future food supply. My old copy of Dirr's the Propagation of Woody Plants makes no mention. Anyone have recent info?

In article ,
says...

'Peter[_14_ Wrote:
;910135']I have a Monkey Puzzle tree that is now blocking a path. When
is the right
time of year to prune it and is there anything I need to know?
Thanks

Can you tell if it is a him or a her. If a her try to find ways to
take cuttings for multpication with a view to future food supply. My
old copy of Dirr's the Propagation of Woody Plants makes no mention.
Anyone have recent info?




--
Ilyan

As far as I know you can not do cuttings and all trees are seed raised,
but then I have never wanted to do either so could be wrong about
cuttings!
--
Charlie Pridham, Gardening in Cornwall
www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of national collections of Clematis viticella cultivars and
Lapageria rosea

Thanks Charlie, Used to be I did not like Monkey Puzzlers. Then I heard that twelve trees could provide a years support for a person, I plant all I can afford in a forest as I see farmers planting non food producing trees in the fields that used to feed us. The trees were sacred in their homeland, but are now an endangered species there. One big benefit in my forest is that the deer do not eat them. Deer do a lot of damage to my favourite young trees Sequoia Sempervirens... see http:The Judi Bari Website for a reason to guerrilla plant Coast Redwoods, they come well from cuttings.

If they bring in a JCB get a big bucket to take a really big rootball as Araucaria A do not like being moved and they are expensive trees.

On 17/01/2011 13:26, Ilyan wrote:
(snip)

Thanks Charlie, Used to be I did not like Monkey Puzzlers. Then I
heard that twelve trees could provide a years support for a person, I
plant all I can afford in a forest as I see farmers planting non food
producing trees in the fields that used to feed us. The trees were
sacred in their homeland, but are now an endangered species there.

I think that you will find they are classed as "vulnerable" rather than
"endangered" (you have to take the "E" in CITES with a bit of
flexibility). Having been fortunate enough to visit the Chilean and
Argentinian Andes in 1990 and 1991, and seen forests of Araucaria
araucana from horizon to horizon, I still find it strange to hear of
them being under threat.

--

Jeff

But there are only a handful of such forests remaining. And probably several of those forests, including a couple of the best, are highly vulnerable to destruction by volcanic eruption. Their original range, which was always limited to a rather narrow latitude band, has been very substantially reduced by logging, and, because of the large seed size, they don't expand back into logged forests, at least over human scales of time, without human intervention. Vast areas of their original range are now covered in bio-desert monocultural forestry of non-native pine and eucalyptus. And since the large mature specimens are over 100 years old, forest restoration, which I am not aware is even happening, will take centuries.

Frequently they grow in mixed woodland with Nothofagus dombeyi, which is equally majestic when mature, and even larger. Though you also see forests without it, typically in the higher and/or drier areas.

You do see them in fruit - there used to be one 100 yards from us which had fruit, and I've seen them elsewhere. Easier to see once the fruit has dropped to the ground, rather than 60ft up in the canopy!

In article ,
Janet wrote:
In article , kay.7aab2f6
says...
Janet;910277 Wrote:

? There are some very large mature specimens here, but I've never
seen one in flower or fruit.

You do see them in fruit - there used to be one 100 yards from us which
had fruit, and I've seen them elsewhere. Easier to see once the fruit
has dropped to the ground, rather than 60ft up in the canopy!

If they fruit in Yorks they should certainly do so here on Arran. I
walk directly under one of the local ones most days so could not have
missed any falling fruit from it. Maybe the specimens here are males; I
must take a closer look for flowers.(when do they flower?). They are
both such old trees they are mostly bare trunked with very high
canopies.

Why? There are lots of reasons why a plant might fruit in Yorkshire
(or Cambridge) and not Arran. Higher insolation, lower winter
temperatures and (most commonly) higher summer daytime temperatures.
The last are 8 Celsius higher in Leeds than Benbecula for July.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

It's very difficult to spot the fruits - they just look like vegetative knobs, could easily be growth buds. Pictures of male and female cones are on:
A Real Puzzler of a Tree. Name That Plant
I don't think I'd ever notice either! - not right at the top of a mature tree, anyway.

In practice the monkey puzzles you see are all are seed raised, which is why you don't know whether you are getting a boy or a girl, and they often take 30-odd years to let you know. But the seeds grow easily, and are produced in large quantities, so it would suffice for the vegetative propagation to be tricky that you just wouldn't bother. Few people specifically ask for specific sexes, though of course there are some of us who would like specifically to buy the female because we want the seeds - they are good eating.

But Wollemi pines have been raised vegetatively, and they are pretty closely related, so I would presume it was possible.

So, on some research, I read that Araucarias are "plagiotropic", which means that branch material knows that it is a branch and will only propagate more branch. So to grow new trees you need stem material. So that isn't very convenient, and is probably why it isn't done very often in practice. No doubt the Wollemi propagation was micro-prop and they got a lot of plants from a small amount of material.

A monkeypuzzle near me, absurdly growing in a pocket handkerchief front garden of a terraced hose, was beheaded when it started to get too big. It has sprouted two new leaders, both growing vertically and close together. What a disaster. I suppose, if they had sense, they would take one out. Though if they had sense they would never have put such a tree there, or cut it down completely when it reached unmanageable size.

On Sun, 16 Jan 2011 12:33:19 -0000, Charlie Pridham
wrote:

In article ,
says...

'Peter[_14_ Wrote:
;910135']I have a Monkey Puzzle tree that is now blocking a path. When
is the right
time of year to prune it and is there anything I need to know?
Thanks

Can you tell if it is a him or a her. If a her try to find ways to
take cuttings for multpication with a view to future food supply. My
old copy of Dirr's the Propagation of Woody Plants makes no mention.
Anyone have recent info?




--
Ilyan

As far as I know you can not do cuttings and all trees are seed raised,
but then I have never wanted to do either so could be wrong about
cuttings!

Hi Charlie

My RHS Dictionary of Gardening says to propagate you follow the
instructions for Hoya. When I look at the instructions for Hoya I
guess that things are relatively impossible in the UK or in any
climate equal to or colder than the UK, unless someone is prepared to
invest a lot in heating. This is probably why a MP tree is so
expensive to buy.

My other reference books refer to a mature tree's propensity to drop
branches without warning (hope you're not underneath) or to drop
extremely sharp bits that wait for someone to walk on them - seems the
spikes can penetrate an average density shoe sole!

Propagation is by seed. As to growing as a food source probably
something for the great grandchildren to harvest as something you can
eat between meals without ruining your appetite (provided nothing
falls on you while you're harvesting). I'll stick to a Milky Way bar!
;-))

Jake

In article ,
Peter wrote:
I have a Monkey Puzzle tree that is now blocking a path. When is the right
time of year to prune it and is there anything I need to know?

As far as I know, they are effectively unprunable, like other
conifers. You can prune very young wood, and remove branches,
but it will not regrow from old wood. If you need to do more,
the best thing is to remove it. Sorry.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On Sat, 15 Jan 2011 14:55:02 +0000 (GMT), wrote:

In article ,
Peter wrote:
I have a Monkey Puzzle tree that is now blocking a path. When is the right
time of year to prune it and is there anything I need to know?

As far as I know, they are effectively unprunable, like other
conifers. You can prune very young wood, and remove branches,
but it will not regrow from old wood. If you need to do more,
the best thing is to remove it. Sorry.


All you can really do is take the lower branches off so that you can
walk underneath it. I've seen that done with a very large one and it
looks OK. It wouldn't be appropriate for a smaller one though.

In article , writes
In article ,
Peter wrote:
I have a Monkey Puzzle tree that is now blocking a path. When is the right
time of year to prune it and is there anything I need to know?

As far as I know, they are effectively unprunable, like other
conifers. You can prune very young wood, and remove branches,
but it will not regrow from old wood. If you need to do more,
the best thing is to remove it. Sorry.


Like pet tigers, they look so sweet when they're young.
--
Sue ]

"Darkside" wrote in message ...

Like pet tigers, they look so sweet when they're young.
--
Sue ]

And likewise,majestic when mature - (:-)
Pete