• Members of the previous forum can retrieve their temporary password here, (login and check your PM).

How to grow Mimosa Hostilis

Migrated topic.

iamthatiam

Rising Star
Someone I know has grown several generations of Mimosa hostilis trees. He learned a lot along the way and would like to share the knowledge, so I posted what he told me.

Growing:

-To sprout a seed, nick a tiny part of the seed coat from the side using a nail clipper, then place on top (or slightly below) of the surface of a moist (but not soaked) small pot. Then place in indirect sunlight (to prevent the soil from drying). It might take a week for a seed to sprout. Once sprouted, it can be placed in direct sunlight. Make sure there is no pooling water if you use a plate to sprout them instead of a pot. A small pot is better. Plant 3 times as much seeds as you need trees because some trees will grow much faster than others. This way you can use the fastest growing trees by re-potting them.

-Caution: the branches have thorns as sharp as needles. They are easily removed though. If you have kids, remove all thorns from the lower branches and main stem.

-The leaves will close at night, or if disturbed. This is normal.

-When re-potting, use the largest pot you can find. The larger the pot, the more space the roots have to grow. Use a large straw/bamboo basket if you can.

-Grow the trees for 2 years. They will produce seeds after the first year. Collect them so you can plant new trees later on. About 4 full grown 2 year old trees produce about 500 gram of root bark.


Dropping / yellowing leaves is a problem. Some sources state that this is normal but they quy I know does not share that opinion. Here is how to prevent the leaves from dropping:

-Pooling water at bottom. It doesn’t like this at all. Even a small amount of pooling water at the bottom will cause leaves to turn yellow and drop. It needs a well-drained pot. If the pot doesn’t drain well, get another one. A straw basket works best, but it might still requires holes to be added to the bottom, depending on how heavy it rains. Do not put a dish underneath the pot, and raise the pot slightly to allow water at the bottom to escape more easily. Of course you can just not water the tree too much, but this is hard to gauge, especially with variable outside conditions.

-Bone dry soil. Make sure there is always at least a little bit of moist in the soil. Bone dry soil will cause new leave shoots at the tip to soften, and then die, and later older leaves to yellow and drop.

-Temperature. Make sure you grow it in a climate similar to its original habitat.

-Not enough nutrition. This will cause leaves to drop quite quickly. Better a little bit more than a little bit less. It can tolerate a little bit over-nutritioning quite well, although you can kill the tree if you over do it. If you use water-dissolved nutrition, you need to apply this once per week. You might have the temptation to give it more nitrogen but a balanced formula is better.

-Urban pollution / dust. It is very sensitive to this. If it doesn't rain enough, spray the leaves every two days to keep them clean. This seems the most important method to prevent the leaves from yellowing and dropping.

-Too dense soil. Especially when growing it in a pot, the roots can choke the plant itself. Add earth worms to give the roots some air.

-Parasites. Check the soil and leaves for any unwanted insects and use a natural remedy if possible.

-Direct sunlight. Lots of it. A few hours direct sunlight during sunrise/sunset is not enough. Two or more days of overcast clouds and the leaves will s tart to turn yellow and drop. It will use a lot of water during the day when receiving lots of sunlight though, and sometimes requires watering twice per day. When the sun is really hot, the leaves bend upwards, similar as they do at night. As the tree grows bigger, lower leaves will yellow and drop due to lack of sunlight. This is normal. Cut off the leafless branches.


Harvesting:

-Harvest after two years (minimum one year after the tree produced seeds).

-Stop watering the tree and harvest in the dry season if you can. Otherwise cover the soil with plastic sheets to prevent rain from entering. Allegedly the tree produces more spice when deprived of water, but the guy I know has not tested this. Either way, you need bone dry soil to make the root harvesting easier.

-You can clip off only one root in order not to kill the tree but this is very labour intensive as it requires removing all soil and de-cluttering the roots. They guy I know tried it and does not recommend it but you might want to do it for ethical reasons.

-Cut off the tree branch about 10 cm above ground level. This is just for easier handling. Remove all thorns form the lower part. The tree contains many very sharp thorns. Gloves will not help and only reduce touch precision. Just handle it very carefully. Chop up the unused branches and place them in a cardboard box to be discarded. You do not want the garbage pickup service to sue you because someone poked an eye out.

-Remove all soil by shaking and poking. Cut off all the roots, even the smaller ones. Only use roots of which the inner root bark is pink. Do not use bark which is above ground level and is not pink. Remove the bark the same day the roots are harvested because at this time the bark is easily removed from the core as the bark is not brittle and easy to peel off. Remove the outer root bark if you can, but this is hard to do with smaller roots and not necessary.

-Once the root bark is peeled off, let it dry for a few days. Once dried, remove any dirt leftovers. Cut up the roots into smaller pieces and place into a coffee grinder. You can use a blender too but some water has to be added to prevent the roots sitting on top with the cutter spinning in air. The smaller the roots can be cut up, the better. If you have a proper mill, even beter.

-If you want to store the root, do so in an airtight back (preferably vacuum) in a cool and dry place.
 
Back
Top Bottom