This little fellow sprouted in October, and looked like a blade of grass for awhile. Then a second leaf formed and unfurled. It doesn’t mind some temps in the mid-30s, and has stayed green now until year end. It isn’t growing much, but it hanging in. One morning my muddled brain thought “maybe it is a coffee plant!” (I wasn’t all the way awake, and was slow to remember that coffee grounds although good mulch, have been both roasted and ground up. Duh.) So, what is it? I don’t remember casting out seeds, nor does it look native. Could a bird have brought me a seed of a Bird of Paradise?

Not much time to post, it is national novel writing month. And there is competition in the air.

Hurry Hurry, keep typing, fast fast; go go.

Yes, starting right about now this is the place for winter gardening. As the temps move into the 80s, several plants believe it is springtime again. I’ve got poblano setting fruit, and blossoms on the hyacinth bean vine. The Texas ebony and sweet acacia puts out new growth too. In another month the ruby grapefruit will start to ripen, with the Arizona Sweet Oranges follow about a month behind that. The only downside is that the days get short — so the temps say “let’s work!” but the early sunset says “time for dinner, get in the house!”

This will be an evolving essay about how to germinate the seeds of these trees. I’ve done this process before with lots of trial and error (and success!). I am inserting photos of my steps this time around so you will see what I am talking about.
1. Get the seed. I think germination rates are higher with fresh seed, but i think 2-3 years old is no problem. I usually get about 75% germination rates. The Laurel seeds are on the left.
2. Soak the seeds for 24 hours in tap water. (discard any seeds that float.) The soaking doesn’t make any noticable difference in the seeds, it might make them slightly easier to cut.

3. Take a short, serated knife, and cut the seed coat. Sometimes it is good to hold the seeds (tight but not so as to crack them) with pliers or vise grips. Be careful. They idea is to make just enough damage to the seed coat that the seed will start to take in water and swell.
4. Wrap the cut seeds in a paper towel, moisten the paper towel, and seal in a sandwich bag. Keep it in a warm place. I kind of like to keep mine near the toaster on the kitchen counter, for no practical reason at all.
5. About every 48-72 hours gently unwrap the seeds. The ones that are swelling are a-ok. At first they may swell only around the cut. That’s ok, just be patient. If any get moldy, discard them. If after a week a seed has no swelling, then deepen the existing cut, and/or make additional cuts. (Be extra careful, the seeds can be getting slippery by now.) Here are pics of the cut seed taking on water, and next to a dry laurel seed.

6. Wrap the seeds back up to await the next time you check them.
7. Within two week of starting to swell, the seed will start to put out a tap root. Excitement! At this point you gently remove the seed from the paper towel, and plant about 1 inch deep in a one gallon pot, with a nice airy potting blend. (1 part pumice, 1 part potting soil, and 1 part peat moss) Keep the soil moist but not dripping.
8. For the next week or so, keep an eye on the reamining paper-towel-wrapped seeds and plant any that begin to sprout. After that time, discard the seeds that haven’t sent out a little rootlet.

9. It might take as long as another month for the seed to send down its taproot and send up its cotyledons and first seeds. This is my least favorite part because you can’t see what’s going on and have to have faith. About 2 out of ten seeds with taproots don’t actually survive to sent up a shoot. Bummer. For those that do, the new plants like sun about half the day with bright shade during the remainder. They will tolerate a little bit of drying out, but prefer even moisture, highs in the 80s, lows in the 50s.

10. So now you have seedlings. They grow slowly. In Arizona they put out new growth in the spring and then rest in the heat of summer, and put out more new growth in the fall as the temps dip into the 80s. It’s best to transplant them into the ground, and wean them off of the moisture rich life they had. Eventually they will tolerate drought and thrive in the full sun and full heat. Just pamper them for the first year.

I think he’s a Euphorbia or something, but here is a new cutie for your inspection. Those aren’t true thorns you see, they look a lot worse than they are. Overall, I am getting a little weary of having plants that need water every 72 hours, and/or wimp out when it gets to be 110 degrees. I mean, I understand, but I don’t like crispy plants laying a guilt trip on me. Soooooo, there are starting to be more cacti, agaves, succulents and desert-adapted plants here in the Garden. Now I just need to be able to notice the subtle signs of growth, so it seems like my happy plants are doing something.

There once was a Norfolk Island Pine (NIP), raised in the humid misty mountains of New Zealand. Through a combination of strange circumstances, the NIP (side comment here: IT people love acronnyms. Anytime they think they will type the same phrase twice in the same paragraph, they coin an acronym and then use jargo-speak to save typing time, and to give themselves an air of Un-Understandability.) Where was I, oh yes, the NIP from New Zealand: this plant was plucked from its nursery and shipped off to Arizona, let’s say at a Walmart or a Home Depot. From there, he was purchased by an intrepid gardener with the audacity to try to possess a NIP on his shaded patio.

At this point, the plant has a couple of choices, he can grow in an very unsuitable environment, or he can wither one spiky frond at a time and turn brown.I am the proud possessor of such a Pine tree, and (knocking wood) it has survived the summer and seems happy. It has put out new growth and is probably about 9 months in residence here in Tempe. So why am I telling you this? Well, this story has parallels. It may not really be about a pine tree, or a patio, but it is most definitely about Tempe. So, if you get my next CD, and there is a song about the little tree… well, listen closely.