hmm any indoor gardeners on the board?
 

The reason I ask is I have a fairly unique tree. The tree is Sterculiaceae Theobroma Cacao, also known as the coco tree. I have about 5 trees up for trade. They are ready to be planted into their final pots. In 4 years when the tree matures it will bloom from the trunk and old growth branches. Then the Cacao pods form, they are about the size of a nice size mango. They take warmer temps and low light. This is not a tree that you can go out and buy at your nursery. If any one is interested let me know.

PS if there are people interested I will also have other unique plants up for trade soon.

Cheers!

Tree
 

Hey,

How much could I buy that tree for?? I got nothing to trade..

Hey Chad id rather do a trade, even a coral frag would do. But if not we can work something out over PM

Hey Kris,

Did you ever get those shame plants going (the touch sensitive ones). If so I've got some frags for trades!! :mrgreen:

Christy :)

Sorry Christy only one came up and its growing rather slowly. But the Rain trees (samanea saman) they are the onse that close up at night and when it rains (or misted) they stand about 1.5 inc still... so you will have to wait a little loger on that one if intrested.



I will also have over the next while seedlings from Star Fruit (Averrhoa Carambola). this is another senstive style plant. the leaves will close up when touched. Wild Coffee (Coffea SP.). IM not to sure what this will turn out like but if its the one im thinking of wow caffine high for me.:lol: Then the next will be Baby Papaya (Carica Papaya). This one produces fruit at an early age, and and is heavely scented.

Oh and just a heads up all the seeds i grow are harvested with the enviroment in mind. So there is no damage done to the rain Forrest.

Interesting!

Can I stop by and check your stuff out? I have never seen any of these but I like different plants (mainly orchids, bonsai, etc.).

I tried growing some eco-friendly rainforest plants when I was in university, but everyone thought I was growing weed so I stopped :)

Hey lost mind, there is honestly not too much to look at. I’m just getting back into gardening. The Cocoa trees are on a drip plate that is on top of my speaker. I have yet to get the means to build my conservatory :lol: .The other plants are just placed around my place for their needs. I was big into orchids for a while but while I was renting a basement suit the person looking after them froze them so to say. I lost 5 paphs that I have had for 4 years, among others. But what are you going to do. Since then I have not had the time for plants and recently my girlfriend and I have start to build a collection of tropical. Your more then welcome to come by one of these days and take a look at what little I have, as well as my reef tank.

no pics?
Steve

do you have any varities that would do well in a balmy, warm, fishroom, they would be artifically lit with full spectrum PC plant lights, we need some plants for our fishroom, they would have to tolerate saltwater humidity,
thanks

um there is no salt in the air eater evaporates and leaves the salt in the tank.. so you don't have to worry about it. If salt evaporated to we would all have salt creep in our driveways :mrgreen:

Steve

steve is right. it would be fine for a while. keep in mind this plant likes to ramain in a warm humid room. as well it dose not like to be moved from one pote to another. so replanting in the final pot once it is picked up is a must.


steve pics of what? my plants or the plant in genral?

I know it dosent evaporate in large quantities but the sodium does transfer in small quantities with the water atoms. and when you have an enclosed space with very high humidity from huge amounts of salt water you do get salt on your driveway, so to say... Every bolt in our new building will be stainless or nickle plated, and they will still show signs of rust, garage doors need to be striped of bolts and replaced with stainless hardware or they fall apart within a year. only coated screws can be used, or stainless, or they fail quickly if under load, I have witnessed this first hand. Also I have been told by a profesional botanist that some tropicals do very poorly with salt water humidity, thats why you only see certain varities of plant life on coast lines, some tolerate it more than others. If salt dosent transfer how do we get salt creep on our fishroom windows that are 5 feet away from the tanks... the salt can clog the pores on some plant leaves, killing them, or burning them

ummm i would really not worry about it.. id imagine there is some sort of ventilation. if not i would worry more about the heal probs of being in that enviroment.

but back to the point, it should be fine. they need lower light, they grow in the moist humid warm enviroment of the rain forest. these trees are not easy at all. i was shocked that i was able to get the seed to even germanate. If you want to give it a try one go for it. i know im keeping one, maybey 2. i think it would be wild to do one as a bonsi.

either

Thats weird kyle I evaporate 5 gal per day in my tank and the only place I have salt creep is on the edges of my tank. in the sump area I have a fair bit but that is from splashing not evaporation but I have calmed that down a lot also.

Steve

I guess the 5 gallons dosent make much of a difference, my friends fish room evaporates about 50 gallons everyday and he has similar problems as me, I can evaporate 150 gallons a day depending on the weather, and when our new fish room is setup, I think we might evaporate up around 200-300 gallons a day, there will be alot of surface area of water

hey steve here are some links to some pictures of the plants. sorry still no digital cammera here.

http://www.grenadachocolate.com/pictures/cocoatree.jpg
http://www.divinechocolate.com/images/tree.jpg
http://www.biol.vt.edu/research/gree...rculiaceae.jpg
http://www.dietamed.it/idee_cucina/g...es/cacao_2.jpg


here is a link on how the chocolate gose from point a to point b
chocolate

Indoor gardeners???

My orchids do fine in the fish room, humidity is great for almost all tropical plants. If it's a plant that comes from the south pacific, the caribean or mediteranian it should do fine in the fish room. Light is the key for most of these plants and I don't mean 10,000k, they'll grow short and bushy. 5500k - 6500k would be best.

Doug

Hey Doug i agree. Would you like a plant?

Kris I would but I've got some plants with tobacco virus, I lost most of my orchids, I'll not add anything to my room now unless I kill off all my others and just start over.. which I can't bear to do.

Thanks though

Doug

That sucks. how did you get that nasty virrus?


and is there not a treatment for it? i thought there was, have you tryed calling brookside orchid garden?

The treatment for tobacco virus is isolation. Brookside has gone into recievership, I used to drive out there once a month at least, I'm sad to see them gone.

Doug

Really? That's too bad, I didn't know that.

Their stuff was too expensive though. I could never bring myself to pay >$50 for an unnamed phaleonopsis... But it was nice having them come and bring stuff to our shows... Sorry to hear they're gone.

Tony they had a great little area in their store front and you could buy your flowers in bloom at discount prices. I got a Den Emma white that was at least 3 feet tall for $11, in bloom. Sharry baby's etc but yes I'm sad to see them gone too. Oriental Orchids is just a 5 minutes drive from me but they deal mainly in Phals and I tend to like Phrags and Phaphs more.

Doug

Hey Doug i actually worked there. Botth in the green houses and the store front. Yes it dose suck that they are into recivership, they where growing some beutiful plants there. There prices are rather low in my eyes, i see the same orchids in markets for 5 times the price and they are almost done blooming.

Well once you get the tabaco virrus taken cair of maybey i can help you build back your cloection.

Great Kris, I used to recommend Brookeside to everyone. I think I got the virus from a Phal from either Home depot or one of the plants I brought home from the Orchid Society meeting. I'm just not sure,

Doug

The stuff that came from Brookside over here (unless it was sold from them themselves at the shows) was the 5-times-the-price-almost-done-blooming stuff. Some of it was very nice but what irked me was that nearly 100% of them have the tags removed making them seriously-devalued orphans. Nice plants yes, but useless for breeding or showing or whatever. $80 for an unnamed Oncidium .... yeah, um, no thanks.

But be that as it may I really don't like hearing about the growers going under. That's really too bad.

Doug I'm into phrags too. I like paphs but only have a handful, don't really have the right conditions for them. I used to really be into Masdevallias and other pleurothallids but the last few years I've had to move away from those because ever since running halides over the tanks I don't have a cool basement anymore (warm and humid is easy to acheive .... cool and humid is not so easy [in a house]). These days I really dig some of the freaky Bulbophyllums but I only keep a handful. Sadly my orchids have taken a backseat to the reefing addiction, so stuff that can handle a little neglect is about the only thing that does well for me anymore.

I have a really cool Dendrobrium spectabile that was a steady bloomer for this time of year, but it has sulked ever since I divided it a few years ago, no more flowers on that one for the time being. I had to split it up, thing was bigger than a tree, and I fought to find one for years and years so I wasn't about to give it up entirely.

Ahhhhhh the old addictions ... hold on I'm gonna go cruise orchidspecies.com for a while and drool over orchid pictures. :mrgreen:

Tony I'd love to get masdevalias, a buddy has his home set up for showing/selling orchids. He's built an enclosed backyard with lightly insulated walls and they way he's got fans set up he can grow anything all year round. He's got everything, it's an amazing set up to see.

I wonder what was going on with the stuff you were seeing from Brookside, everything I got from them was labeled, if it wasn't labeled it was cheap.

Like you, warm and humid is easy, cool and humid is not so easy.

Doug

Maybe it's the stores that were reselling them that were marking them up and losing tags (I suspect that tags may have been lost legitimately-by-accident, or were pulled out by greenhouse store employees not knowing any better).

I like the smaller stuff like Masdevallias so much better. I tried a Phaius tankervillea for a few years a while back ... darn thing to to be about 7' tall (basically a palm tree with nice flowers). I had to let that one go (sold it to a friend who filled in his backyard with a ~30'-40' greenhouse).

Greenhouse over here is the way to go, not that it gets cold often, but often enough it can be <-20C so outdoor/semi-outdoor growing isn't a huge option. OTOH it is sunny quite often so as long as you can create a humid enough environment you can do well with Vandas over here which is unusual I think given our latitude. I know a few folks with greenhouses doing some amazing things with vandaceous type. Not really a houseplant though requiring >90% humidity. :lol:

Errr sorry for stealing the thread, Kris. :redface: Didn't mean to do that!

Hey Tony, no worries. i think there needs to be more plant talk here.


For the longest time i was into orchids, but when i went to BCIT and moved away most of them did not do umm to well. Where i was living though before all this i had the perfect house. i was able to keep Vandas, Pahps, Masdivelias, Oncidums, and catallyeas. sorry about the spelling. Lately i have been mainly into wierd tropics. My goal is to one day build a conservitory to house my plants. Im also thinking of building a marsh system with unique bog plants that are from the amazon rain forrest. not to sure on this.

or you could do a bog plant set up from the vancouver Island rainforest.

Steve

hmmm theres a good idea. hmmm steve where you intrested in a tree, i can save you one.

probably to expensive for my liking but how big do they get and how fast?

Steve

expensive, well bring a frag or two.
how big, umm no that big when planted in a pot.
how fast you ask.. wel it takes 4 years for it to mature.


they are a simple easy plant aslong as you give it what it needs.