Dreamtimes Acacia growing for Noobs, feel free to advise or ask questions.

[gerbil]

Things are healthy but you should be aiming for thicker stems and a more robust apical meristem and axillary shoots.

In general I think you will be wanting to increase the sun exposure, wind exposure, nutrient availability, manage a better wet dry cycle and potentially use an alternate mix for the acuminata. (not to say they can't do well in what they are in, but barkier seed mixes tend to get more fungal issues, nutrient issues, seperate and compact easier, become hydrophobic and can make managing wet dry cycles difficult, achievable just tricky/different.)

Regarding sun or general setup, I quite enjoyed this explaination from a novice, although you can start them in full sun, timing is fairly crucial, as full sun during parts of the year here will kill things outright.

"The potted plants are placed in a waterproof shade structure giving 70% shade with orientation allowing two hours of unshaded morning and afternoon sun when day temperatures are below 30 degrees C, afternoon sun is shaded when temperature exceeds 30 degrees C. This is achieved by adjusting the heights of two shade cloth blinds. The design of the structure allows plenty of air circulation. The area is protected from strong wind.

This sounds elaborate but it is only a man-made structure trying to duplicate the conditions self-sown seedlings experience growing under native trees."

http://anpsa.org.au/APOL2006/jun06-1.html

Not to say completely replicate it, but allow times of good strong light in comfortable conditions, then when overly hot and strong it needs to be more dappled

Acuminata is quite prone to water issues like damping off and root rot / poor root development, so I think getting their soil and environmental factors right are quite important to a good start. Having a fertile well drained sandy soil (like sandy loam), and allow a wet dry cycle.

If your seedling mix or potting mix is of quality, then you possibly won't need any fertiliser, like a good homemade aged compost etc, but if you buy from stores or make up coir/CSS mixes, fertiliser is needed if not essential for the latter.

I use this to fert my acacia seedlings/saplings with great results (middle one), over a variety of mixes: straight seed mixes, various coir:css ratios, coirs:composts etc. Inoculated or not. It's essentially blood and bone, don't know what they've dont different, yet to investigate.

http://www.richgro.com.au/my_native_garden/fertilisers.php

There is good info here regarding different mixes, nutrient levels etc and how they made plants react, i.e. the quickest 'healthiest' growth due to excess Nitrogen isn't particularly desireable. Well worth a good read, and it is context and species specific, we need to group things, yet seperate and think logically about specificities.

http://www.kew.org/ucm/groups/public/documents/document/kppcont_047341.pdf

oh, and with sands, don't forget to sieve and wash them, adding 'sand' with all this fine particle dust will lock up your medium, creating a waterlogged anaerobic envionment for your roots, if you are doing that to an already difficult to work with mix, you'll be pulling your hair out playing with drainage, pH, nutrients, over and underwatering etc.

Edited February 10, 2013 by gerbil

[endorfinder]

I tried some of the native smoke pellet seed starter things from herbalistics. Will see how they go

[Stillman]

Even after all this shit weather she still flowered furiously, bees were working it hard today so might have some seed eventually.

[Stillman]

The leaves on my maidenii have gone a nice red colour and its finally setting seed pods so will have a heap of seed if anyones keen. A mate who is a botanist came over adn says that the phylloids seemed too broad, but the flower, seed pod and bark seem to be spot on? Was sourced from Greening Australia at the Gap Brisbane so may be a locality phenotype? I dunno

http://s111.photobucket.com/user/stillmanz/media/DSCF2013_zpsb6613d64.jpg.html'>

and the start of seed pods

http://s111.photobucket.com/user/stillmanz/media/DSCF2008_zps4f333d72.jpg.html'>

[waterboy 2.0]

young maiden, seems the cold really gets the red going

[carlturney]

Hi All,

Some ideas I've got on the subject. I don't profess to be an expert, but have had successes in a wide range of organisms (from fungi to cacti to A. phlebophylla).

Your comments, corrections and criticisms to this are warmly welcome.

(1) The pics from the original poster show pots with what seem to be commercial potting mix. That stuff is pretty lousy. It's essentialy undecomposed sawdust. I've been taught that the microbes breaking down the cellulose in the wood chips etc. have a greater "pull" on available nutrients than the rootlets of the plant itself. They are in competition, and without the constant presence of slow-release fertilizers, the plant will lose out.

I'd use a personally-created soil mix. One that has plain dirt, loam, matured home compost, trace minerals, and 2 other important ingredients. (See 2 and 3.)

(2) Acacia trees are in the same family as legumes (or something). Something akin to clover. They get their nitrogen from certain symbiotic bacteria or fungi on the surface of their rootlets. You =could= keep feeding them nitrogen in the form of fertilizers, but it's just not in their nature.

I haven't tried it myself yet, but the next time I grow some acacias: I'm going to "innoculate" my soil mix (above) with a hefty portion of soil that I've taken from right at the rootlets of a large, healthy acacia tree (preferably the very same species as I'm growing).

This seems to be in direct contrast to the "sterilise your soil" advice in the Marion Simmons article, above. Comments?

(3) One species that intrigues me is A. phlebophylla. I noticed that is grows in stark direct sunlight. That it has cold winters. And that it is in just one place in the world, on a certain type of granit-ey soil (combined with centuries of fully-decomposed predecessors).

So, I will be adding powdered granite to my soil mix (above). If I don't live near the same geology as found on Mt. Buffalo, Victoria, Australia: I will go to some stonemasons, ensure they're working with real granite, and offer to take some of their meddlesome dust/rubble from their workspaces. :-)

(4) Also noticed that, in the case of phlebophylla in the wild at least, their root tips always are in contact with water, but they never thrive in constantly soggy or wet soil.

i.e. Water must always be available, but down at the bottom of a preferably very tall pot -- or the tree is planted near (but not in) a year-round body of water. Any specimens I had died when their pots dried completely out.

Comments?

Carl

Melbourne