Hoping to learn more about bonsai'ing Royal Poinciana's / Flame Tree

[SU2]

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I've got some, from seed I collected in Bahia, Brazil. I live in São Paulo, where the climate is similar to Florida.
I soaked the seeds in 70 degrees C water and left them in the water overnight; planted in nursery soil 24h later, it was the beginning of the Spring here (September). They have sprouted in early December (Summer here in Brazil).

Wow! I guess that, knowing it has compound leaves, that a seedling would look like that, but damn that's cool! The seeds come from those giant, banana-shaped seed-pods - I've tried before w/o luck, my guess is that I'd had 'bad pods' to start with, that they were no longer viable when I got the pods (when in the year did you do this? Did you get the seeds from pods or were they purchased? The seeds are very small right? In the dried, likely-unviable pods I had, the seeds were small and dry....)

[edit- the seed-pods I had are pictured in the post directly beneath your reply, I've only tried once but as said I suspect they were too dried-out]

 

[SU2]

The tree didn't come w/ us on the move almost all my trees are still in FL being cared for by a friend. We just moved in Sept due to Irma.

Yea these pods

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I didn't open the pods until they dried out on their own. Don't remember how long that took as I just threw them in the shed. I don't think the pods have to dry out, you can open them yourself and get the seeds out.

Now the way I know you are supposed to do it is that on one end of the seed is the embyro, you need to scarify this end with sand paper, clip it etc...

you're also supposed to soak the seeds for 24 hours in warm water.

Now the way this one came to be, is not by any of those ways above. My wife just took the seed and pushed it with her finger in a pot on our front patio. She didn't even tell me haha! She guesses it was about 3 weeks before it sprouted. The pot in sprouted from had some dracaenas already planted in it and got watered once maybe 2 times a week.

Hope this helps!!

Yes that helps a lot!! I'd only tried germinating once, was given a seed-pod by someone who has a ~30' specimen on their property, they'd said they didn't know what specie it was (neither did I, then) and that nobody could propagate the seeds, I gave it a go but half-assed it like you describe your wife did, only didn't have the luck (cannot say I even waited 3wks before calling it a failure, maybe I would've had some seedlings had I waited!), when I opened that pod and sowed them I just had the feeling they were too-dry and past their viable time, was kind of expecting failure (and may've caused it myself due to that, would guess I waiting 2wks max w/o seeing them sprout and tossing them..) Thanks for the tips, germinating seeds typically doesn't interest me but here it does so am happy to have some guidelines for the next time I've got a pod! Do you know what the recommended 'dryness'/freshness should be for the pod, like is the ideal pod one that just got plucked from the tree, just fell from the tree, or fell 2 weeks ago and has sat in your shed since? Because w/ how ubiquitous they are around here I know I'll be able to get a TON of pods, so want to do it just right

And re Irma, were you living on the beach or something? I mean I'm ~1/2mile from the beach and only know 1 family that evacuated (and was just temporary, it sounds like you're saying you moved because of it? If it was because of property damages suffered during it that forced relocation, my condolences, I hope the insurance is going smooth if that's the case!! Hope the move went smooth as they can go!

 

[SU2]

You would have to graft branches.

About 6 branches.

Does not make a great or easy Bonsai ---------- forget the image you may see
on-line, someone photo-shopped a mature tree into a bonsai pot.

Are you serious or sarcastic about the photo-shopped comment?

And why would I have to graft branches? Poincianas don't seem less ramified than most trees....unless you mean for angles of the branches? I've been using wedges to make mine's shoots go sideways a bit, the flush it's putting out now has a strong apical tendency so have just been jamming small pebbles on their collars between stem & trunk

 

[Anthony]

@SU2

Back in the 1980's we had a member of Colin Lewis's club from the UK
try his hand down here with a Flamboyant.

The only way he could get 6 branches was thread grafting.

The tree is leaf dense, and branch sparse. Not worth the effort.
Anthony

Put in the words ---- Flamboyant Bonsai - see what comes up and for sale.

photo shopped image -

If you know the size of the flowers [ they do not shrink down ] look hard.

 

[StoneCloud]

@Anthony Interesting to hear about the club member's difficulty w/ the branches. I had no intentions of trying my hand at bonsai w/ the species as I felt that it wouldn't work.

From my observations I noticed them to be sparse as you said in branching, especially close to the base of branches and trunk. I didn't know they were that hard to get to grow and keep branches where needed.

all in all @SU2 if your heart desires go for it and give it a shot, but know bonsai'ing one of these pretty little things means you are working against the grain..hard!

Maybe let em get medium big and use them as decor around your bonsai garden b/c they are cool trees!!

Keep us posted though as it'll be interesting to see your progress

I was living in Davie, broward county.......apparently our area was hit harder than even the immediate surrounding areas. There were reports of tornadoes as well. I can't verify that as I was holed up in the house LOLOLOL

but seeing the damage afterward was insane!!!!!

 

[quietobserver]

@SU2

Back in the 1980's we had a member of Colin Lewis's club from the UK
try his hand down here with a Flamboyant.

The only way he could get 6 branches was thread grafting.

The tree is leaf dense, and branch sparse. Not worth the effort.
Anthony

Put in the words ---- Flamboyant Bonsai - see what comes up and for sale.

photo shopped image -

If you know the size of the flowers [ they do not shrink down ] look hard.
View attachment 173774

I’ve since relocated for work, but never had any luck getting one to flower (EVER) when grown in a pot for bonsai over almost a decade as a long time S FL resident . Might just be my experience, but I’m not asking for a friend lol..

 

[SU2]

Depends on the seed and if it's a 'hard' coat. you can wait a long time if you didn't get the coating to peel off IMO.

Mine are moody but i don't live in a native range, might be OK for him.
That said the Texas ebony is so much better to care for. For no reason my Flamboyants just struggles indoors when all my other trees grow slow but fine.

Do you mean that it'd still germinate, eventually, even w/o being properly soaked and/or scored/scarified? When is a seed-pod 'optimal'? I can always get as many as I want, so really want to try germinating some from seed but unsure what's best- a fully matured pod that's about to / just fell off the tree, or something that'd fallen-off a week ago and been left in a sheltered area?

Dunno WHT I plan to do w/ with them but they're such a cool specie that, IMO, having a little raised-bed/box germinating 50+ of them would be quite cool! Unsure how fast they grow but, being that their biggest flaw for bonsai'ing them is lack-of-ramification, it'd seem that taking 2-4 juvenile seedlings and growing in a manner where you join/fuse them to 1 specimen would give you two huge advantages out of the gate: 2-4x the trunk girth and 2-4x the amount of growing-tips at the top of the specimen (giving me far more ramification potential at a much lower-height on the cluster!)

 

[SU2]

@SU2

Back in the 1980's we had a member of Colin Lewis's club from the UK
try his hand down here with a Flamboyant.

The only way he could get 6 branches was thread grafting.

The tree is leaf dense, and branch sparse. Not worth the effort.
Anthony

Put in the words ---- Flamboyant Bonsai - see what comes up and for sale.

photo shopped image -

If you know the size of the flowers [ they do not shrink down ] look hard.
View attachment 173774

I imagine photo-shopped images are the exclusive realm of those shysters who sell "bonsai seeds" (don't get me started on the absurdity of the term itself, 'bonsai seeds', as if a seed knows what form its owner will make it into!)

However, upon googling 'flamboyant bonsai' I feel like this *is* very doable, these don't look photo-shopped and seem quite acceptable:





When you see these are you just thinking "100.0% chance they were made by grafting"? If so, anything you could tell me / any directions to point me in to learn about grafting poincianas would be hugely appreciated, I mean I've got so much stock in my area for the taking that, if grafting is simple-enough, my best approach won't be trunk-chopping and growing-in canopies it'll be grafting thicker branches('whips'?) to it after trunk-chopping, so I can save months of girth-growth compared to letting the new shoots develop)

Thanks again for all the info on these, they seem like such great trees for this so want to be sure I've exhausted all possibilities before giving up on them!!!

 

[SU2]

Does anyone know when the proper time of the year is to collect large poincianas from the wild? Specimen that've got 6"+ trunks, that you'd be trunk-chopping? These are high on my hunting list now!

 

[ssynn]

what i have found doing research to plant mine was nip the end of the seed coat off, dont hit the seed and then soak for a day. i soaked mine for half a day and out of 8 7 sprouted, i think i clipped the seed on one so im blaming that.

 

[KelcieMichelle11]

Is there any way to get to the bottom of this? I can take more photos if it'd help! I'd be very happy if it were a mimosa it's just that I've gone on searching for them very hard before on many occasions and never found any specimen in my area, and with how ubiquitous the royal poinciana is in my area I figured it's just gotta be that - deductive reasoning, not necessarily a r.poinciana but just seemed the most likely, while the leaflets aren't conforming to the pictures I suspect that's just an issue of too-small/juvenile shoots/leafs that aren't true-to-form yet - would *really* love to get to the bottom of this though!!

Why would a mimosa be challenging to bonsai? I'd have thought that a tree whose leaves are composed of leaflets would be inherently more-suited for bonsai than a species w/o compound leaves...It seems these (mimosa.H, r.poinciana) are so well-suited, given the leaflets look like small leaves!

I’m also in FL and growing a couple royal poincianas from seed! Here’s some pics, I honestly do see a good resemblence. Mine are very young though, so hard to tell. We also have a mimosa “sensitive plant” and the leaf is extremely similar as they’re in same family. Here are pics, any other pics you can take? I can try an identifying app but not always reliable.

Also, they are definitely an established popular bonsai and can grow indoors. They need a lot of sun though, and I felt that as seedlings they needed a heating mat if indoor, and a grow light helped a lot. But once they are established they do well in temps around 65-75, and can go as low as like 55-60 but better in 70ish. The real difficulty with this tree is that the trunk wants to be thin and grow very tall instead of the short thick tree youd want your bonsai to be. So the only way to make it’s trunk thick in the fastest time (meaning a couple years even) is to let it grow very tall and then cut It around a third, completely off. So you won’t be able to really keep it “small” which is not what most want. It can be pruned small and clipped off top at a small size over time bit by bit, but this means itll take a LOT longer for it to be stylish like you want. Overall though, it can and is beautiful, just challenging. Ironically these guys shot up extremely fast a grow like crazy, which makes them sturdy and thriving! Just sadly makes them difficult bonsais . But I am excited to try them!