Growing Grass Trees!: Leave/spines

Showing posts with label Leave/spines. Show all posts

Saturday, April 19, 2008

An Update on the Seedlings

This photo was taken on the 31/3/08, the 3 seedlings in the center pot. The next photo is the same 3 seedlings and was taken today 19/4/08. You can see the slow progress, although they have grown quite a few new leaves/spines they haven't really grown all that much in 19 days.

(If you click on the photo you can enlarge for a better view)

PS. definitely 3 active cultures!!

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This photo shows how a plant can be hampered by the circumstances of the seed husk and leaves, this one is trapped into a loop.

I think the little plant is quite a strong one, some others are really quite spindly and if the thin leaves get damaged by a bit of wind or get a touch too much sun, they can die off. I have found that if I snip off the die back then they send up more shoots. I put the plants out into the sunshine for about 45 minutes most mornings before it gets too hot. (again enlarge for a better view )

Cheers

Friday, April 18, 2008

More Photo's from the Net:

I forgot to get the links for these

so apologies to the original posters/photographers.

This one must be hundreds of years old! Probably half the size

when Captain Cook ran aground in 1770 in Qld.

(Nathan Johnson)

These ones have had a close shave with fire ...that's for sure!

Amazingly long flower spears!

(Thanks for the great Photo KellyMacDonald)

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This is a close up of the spear drying off in the center of Grass Tree No.2
You can see a few spines/leaves have been damaged by the spear and have turned brown. This spear first appeared in Mid August 2007 and it is now Mid April 2008 and it still is firmly fixed to the plant. I'll let you know when it falls off!

The tally for seedlings is 86 - 2 still doubtful, they haven't grown or died yet!

Total number of my GT's is 7 and 86 seedlings = 93!!

Cheers

Monday, April 7, 2008

No's 5 & 6 are Trunk less so far...

I think these little plants are about 18 months old...

I'm not really sure...

I've had them about a year and they were quite small when I got them, they had hardy leaves/spines so I estimate them to have been about 6mths young!

No.5 is a smaller plant, its leaves are about 2 foot long.

No.6 has about 9 Leaves and they are about 3 foot long...

I wonder how long it will take (years?) to get a little woody base?

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Leaves/Spines

GT No7

This photo shows how dense the leaves are on a large plant, heaps of fantastic green leaves.

GT No. 1 Leaves growing out from the center.
These colours are a true indication of the actual leaf colour.
Cheers

Grass Trees… Xanthorrhoea

Grass Trees… Xanthorrhoea species only grow in Australia and developed early in evolutionary stakes for flowering plants.

They are very slow growing, but mature trees are centuries old, the lifespan can be 600 years! Unfortunately they have been reduced due to careless land clearing and land development. Respect for this species is easy when one considers also the valuable use to humans.

Without destroying the tree, Aboriginals ate the white, tender sections of leaf bases and roots, and collected the seeds to grind into flour. The resin at the base waterproofed their canoes, fixed their axe heads and spears. They also fermented the nectar to have a celebratory brew!

Early Colonists were also inventive, using the resin for their dwellings on floorboards and walls, stove polish, soaps, perfumes, incense in church and later in the manufacture of early gramophone records! Plant this Australian landscape icon.

It is fire tolerant, frost hardy, and drought resistant.

The flowering spear attracts honey birds and native bees and butterflies and provides a shelter for lizards. Of course the grass tree is agelessly stylish and a great investment for garden design

Native or Exotic Plants

#A Native plant means that it’s
endemic to this country – Australia.

*Exotic plant is one that has come
from another country - not Australia

? This means that I don't know if a
plant is N or E and will try to find out.

Weeds...
A weed is a plant that is growing in
the wrong place at the wrong time
therefore you can have a native
plant that is a weed.
For example the umbrella tree
is a native Australian tree
but should be growing in the
northern tropics where there are
insects etc. that will eat it
and keep it’s growth and spread
under control,whereas down here
in the sub tropic (Brisbane) they
tend to take over every thing and
spread like wildfire.

Rockpool

My generation is dying, after long lives
swung from war to depression to war to fatness.
I watch the claws in the rockpool, the scuttle, the crouch—
green humps, the biggest barnacled, eaten by seaworms.
In comes the biggest wave, the irresistible
clean wash and backswirl. Where have the dead gone?
At night on the beach the galaxy looks like a grin.
Entropy has unbraided Berenice's hair.
We've brought on our own cancers, one with the world.
I hang on the rockpool's edge, its wild embroideries:
admire it, pore on it, this, the devouring and mating,
ridges of coloured tracery, occupants, all the living,
the stretching of toothed claws to food,
the breeding on the ocean's edge.
'Accept it? Gad, madam, you had better.'

Judith Wright.
1915-2000