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Botany The Acacia Grow Thread

Growing logs with advice and results.
Migrated topic.
Couple of videos of my acuminata, peruvianus and 1yr old floribundas. Last week I put some mulch around my obtuse and acuminata trees to help with moisture retention over summer. Lets see how they go!
 

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My internet isn't good enough to watch your videos right now @CheeseCat but I look forward to viewing soon!

On my end, life has been totally crazy (utter love, utter challenge and everything in between) for me lately so I have not posted any updates. Here are all my seedlings. They're slowly unfurling and the older ones are really starting to take which is great. Took the seedlings out of their shade cloth greenhouse for the photo. I am needing to move house on very short notice but luckily my acacias will have a special home to be in the interim.

Hope you guys are all doing well.
 

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@Animistic no worries, it takes ages to load videos unfortunately.

Looking forward to when my seedlings are the size of your bigger ones. Great work btw, seedlings look happy and plentiful!
 
Looking great @CheeseCat ! What is that giant tree in your backyard? It’s very majestic. Are some of these from seed you collected from the active ones you worked with over there?

And your seedlings are looking good too, @Animistic.. brother wattle?

One of my phlebs has unfortunately become a central part of some lucky insect’s diet..which have been doing considerable damage. Not just being chomped on but something also seems to be “mining” some of pigment in the phyllodes.. and as usual insects are loving the flavours of the obtusifolia foliage.

Here’s a post heavy rain video.. I love the way the plants look at night after rain. In fact I just love the way plants look at night! It’s my favorite time to look at them.

Over the next week I plan to guerrilla plant a whole bunch of my wattles around town. Been busy on my end as well and they are at an age where if I don’t stay onto watering the pot plants they dry out very quickly.. they want to be in the ground at this point.

Oh and had to throw in some footage of a nearby gorge.. blessed to be so close to such amazing national parks here
 

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@acacian that's our pine tree, definitely majestic and one of the reasons I love the property so much.
acacian said:
Are some of these from seed you collected from the active ones you worked with over there?
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All my larger plants aren't from anything I've personally collected. I have collected seeds from 3 nice trees but they aren't confirmed active just yet.

My obtuse are definitely getting a lot of attention from fluffy bums and leaf miners. Bit annoying seeing new growth burrowed and deformed. Not sure if there's much that can be done about it other than making sure they stay hydrated...

I hear ya on the watering, I usually have a window of about 3 days and then they are thirsty again.

That gorge looks incredible!
 
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No you're thinking of A. phlebophylla. Obtusifolia is endemic to both coastal and moderately higher altitude (top of hinterland escarpments.) but seems to be getting munched at higher alt too. Buffalo wattle is A. phlebophylla which does prefer high altitude and is an alpine species.. unfortunately my more or less equally high altittude doesn't seem to prevent insect ttack. But it likely suffers from this in it's native habitat. The insect attacking the phleb is Mictis profana.. the crusader bug. They’re active during summer I’m told. So probably will have to hold tight for a little while.

Even in the alpine areas where phlebophylla naturally occurs, it is still subject to fungal infections/human spread pathogens/wasp galls.. it is known to be the trickiest of the DMT Acacias to grow. Rarely getting past 2 years.. here's to mine getting there! Its about 15 months old now.
 
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@acacian, yep brother wattle.

So I'm getting my acacias babies ready for a move and some some rough data on my current survivability. Something loves munching on the bipinnate leaves of some plants, so I've got a few that look incredibly spindly ATM, from experience at least some of these should bounce back.

I started out with 120 seeds. I currently have 107 left. 13 were lost early on to ants lopping off the heads or bush turkeys scratching in my seedlings trays (this is actually os fortunate because a bush turkey could have taken out the whole lot lol). Of them 96 are looking at least like they will definitely make it, even if some are currently a bit stunted but we will see. I'm pretty happy with that, most of them are looking great. One is absolutely powering along with a few true phyllodes already and many starting to throw phyllodes. I'll attach a picture of the most developed seedlings from this season's batch.

I've gotta transport my seedlings some hours so getting them all packed in probably with a towel for padding. Still a few days off the move though.
 

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acacian said:
No you're thinking of A. phlebophylla. Obtusifolia is endemic to both coastal and moderately higher altitude (top of hinterland escarpments.) but seems to be getting munched at higher alt too. Buffalo wattle is A. phlebophylla which does prefer high altitude and is an alpine species.. unfortunately my more or less equally high altittude doesn't seem to prevent insect ttack. But it likely suffers from this in it's native habitat. The insect attacking the phleb is Mictis profana.. the crusader bug. They’re active during summer I’m told. So probably will have to hold tight for a little while.

Even in the alpine areas where phlebophylla naturally occurs, it is still subject to fungal infections/human spread pathogens/wasp galls.. it is known to be the trickiest of the DMT Acacias to grow. Rarely getting past 2 years.. here's to mine getting there! Its about 15 months old now.
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Thought it might have been cognitive flatulence on my part - {mumble}folia/{mnph}phylla - it's all the same to some addled corner of my mind, it seems :LOL: [hm, an anagram of "transform" is "fart norms", too…]
In short, critters munch stuff. We can only hope the specimen survives, preferably by ramping up alkaloid content 😁
acacian said:
@Transform, phlebo might be a good one to try in your area? Has no problems with cold.
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Well, it can go on the list if it can survive damp and dark at the same time.
 
Transform said:
Thought it might have been cognitive flatulence on my part - {mumble}folia/{mnph}phylla - it's all the same to some addled corner of my mind, it seems :LOL: [hm, an anagram of "transform" is "fart norms", too…]
In short, critters munch stuff. We can only hope the specimen survives, preferably by ramping up alkaloid content 😁

Well, it can go on the list if it can survive damp and dark at the same time.
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Hey, actually if you subtract the phyllode shape they are near identical phyllodes.. same red resinous margins, leathery texture, prominent anastomoses between longitudinal nerves. Veins thicker than most other trees in the longifolia clade. I actually think in some ways phlebophylla and obtusifolia are just as similar as obtuse and longifolia.. they just have different similarities. But excusing brainfarts aside, I did enjoy the anagram :)

I think the dark damp could be an issue with most species but I think it’s very possible they could adapt. Many of these species are cultivated in conditions pretty different to their native environment. Of course there’s only one way to find out. No harm in germinating a few seedlings and seeing how they go.. you might be pleasantly surprised.

On a side note to the earlier comparison; this might be interesting to you: aside from Acacia acuminata, the majority of the known Australian DMT containing acacias are members of the longifolia clade.. floribunda, maidenii, mucronata, obtusifolia, longifolia, phlebophylla, “c”, sophorae, oxycedrus, alpina, dallachiana .. some more consistent than others.. but all of the above have had +ve findings. It’s a very interesting group. Seems to produce some of the more interesting alkaloid profiles.

Of course there are many others but the longifolia clade seems to be the most tryptamine rich group we know thus far

Well.. I had a very busy morning in the garden weeding. And I just finished planting lots of really cool native species.. Some acacian, some not:
Olearia viscidula
Acacia dawsonii
Acacia provincialis/retinodes (unsure), Acacia granitica
Indigofera australis
Hakea eriantha,
Allocasuarina cunninghamiana
another young courtii
a narrow phyllode Acacia maidenii, another Acacia oxycedrus and phlebophylla ,
Acacia pendula
And finally Leptospermum polygalifolium.

Sorry.. I had to list out my hard work 😅 was feeling proud of how much I got done! Needless to say, my garden is near full capacity now. The last two trees I’ll hopefully squeeze in are acacia longifolia/binervata. Photos to come.

@Animistic .. great germ/survival rate! You must be stoked. You are moving? Or just planting many of them elsewhere? How are your other plants going?
 
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Not 100% sure what I've got growing here, I thought it was obtusifolia but I found them at the start of November.
I attached a photo of some pods that are not from the same plant but I was sure it looked the same just a little older . eh, either way I'll grow them out the best I can and see what happens.

I just threw them in the front garden after a hot water soak and have maybe 12/20 come up, I might throw most of them in some tube pots and leave one or two in situ and see how they travel.
 

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Looks like obtuse to me.. it looks like it will flower very soon which corresponds to the flowering time of obtuse. Or are you referring to the seedlings?
 
No, the plant I posted above has very young green pods in the middle bottom, but the pods I took were brown and mature, making me think it wasn't obtuse. I thought it looked the same as the one above at the time, but I didn't get any photos of it. Someone else suggested longissima as a possibility? but yeah without photos who knows. Hopefully they grow out and then I'll know :)
 
@acacian

Both, I am moving and my plants are certainly. My other plants have come along well, the vines I'm cultivating need repotting, the chacrunas I had growing unfortunately didn't take to well which is a first.

Either way, we've finally landed, and not where we originally expected to so I'm more south than intended but oh well.

Where I've moved to my brother wattle acacias are getting full sun for 2 hours during the peak sun of the day and the rest of the day it's shaded by trees. So far they seem to like this but it's very early days and I will likely move them somewhat.
 
That sounds like an ideal lighting setup for such young seedlings. I imagine they will like that.. in my limited time growing Acacia I’ve found young plants never really bode well in full sun when they still have juvenile foliage or are only throwing their first phyllodes. Dappled shade seems optimal and really is closer to what it would be like for them being surrounded by plants in the wild..
 
That's what I figured.

How often are you guys fertilizing? So far with my natives I only use seasol, I think I could probably do 1-2 times a week. They definitely seems to boost after a seasoling.
 
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