Hi there. I have placed this forum in the sub-tropical area as although New Zealand is not sub-trop I live on the Coromandel Peninsula so have a very favourable climate with no frosts. I am not much of a gardener so please excuse my ignorance (with time this will change!!). We have just completed building our own home. We have built up quite high on poles (about 6 metres up) and I need something that is fast growing and evergreen that I can plant in front of the poles below the house!!!! (This is a very sunny area) I have looked at the 'Asian Bell tree' but it looks as if this can grow alot bigger than 6m. We do not really want something that is going to be gigantic as it will block our beautiful views. PLEASE if anyone has some good ideas on what to plant. I will plant quite a few along the front! Thanks, Bronnie.
Help! I don't know what tree to plant!!
Aloha Bronnie, and welcome to TZG.
Your new home sound gorgeous, I hope you will post some pictures especially of the views!
Are you looking for something that will produce fruit or a tree that flowers? Will you be putting in a watering system, or do you get enough rain in your area? Inquiring minds want to know!
Jenn
Con bai Bronnie?
I recently needed a tree or two to fill in a hole in my yard where a huge old tree (now dearly departed) used to be. I put in a Malay Apple tree there and thing has grown like crazy! Look into it, because I'm not sure how tropical they are (it never gets cold at all here in Aruba) and they also might grow too tall for you. But the thing is beautiful, christmas tree-shaped, with big green leaves. Sort of like a mango tree, but with a uniform conical shape and slightly bigger leaves.
My real vote would be mango trees, but only because I love the fruit so much personally. They're also fast growing if you pick the right varietal. I have a "valencia pride" that has grown like crazy since I planted it a little over a year ago.
Hello, thank you Jenn and 'Happy Island'. I will put some photos on once I work out how!!! We have lovely views out to the Pacific Ocean with two small old volcanic islands. I am definately keen to plant a fruiting tree and will look into the Malay Apple Tree. It does get coldish here over the winter months, we are in Autumn at the moment. It will get down to about 5 degrees in winter over night. We definately get enough rain but our land is well irrigated as we are on a septic tank. I have about 1500 metres of planting area and would like to do an orchard as well. Thanks guys!! Bronnie. I have just seen the image button. Will give it a try!!
The Malay-Apple, Syzygium malaccense needs sustained temps of about 55 degrees F / 23 degrees C to do well.
It will be too cold in your area to survive very long.
Sounds like you might do well with "low chill" stone fruit & pomes (Plums, Peaches, Apricot, Apples, Pears, etc.)
55F is actually 12.8C. Subtracting 32 from the Farenheit figure doesn't give you the Celcius equivalent.
What might be good for you is Loquat, Eriobotrya japonica. Looks attractive, doesn't get too tall, and fruits.
I went to the Coromandel Coast many years back, it's a really beautiful area.
No wonder Celcius hasn't caught on in the US!
What is the formula for changing F to C.
32 F is 0 C.
Found it!
C = 5/9 x F - 32
F = 9/5 x C + 32
This makes it easy! http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/tempfc.htm
41 F / 5 C is still much too cold for Syzygium malaccense.
Don't worry, you're only about 200 years behind the times. I think you'll find virtually all the scientific community in the US went metric years ago. I think that space shuttle disaster that killed all the crew because of the mix up of the US system caused a major rethink.Even a lot of Hollywood pseudoscience these days runs on metric.
There are some Syzygiums that would be suitable in that climate but I think they end up growing too tall. Although pruning might help. But Loquat doesn't usually get too high.
Thanks!
Not much reason to worry about temps here. Just wet or dry. Voggy or clear.
55 F is about the coldest it has ever gotten. 90 F is about the hottest it has gotten.
In all of my botany work I use metric (also standard US for executive reading) but I have never had to take a plant's temperature.
The mind boggles when you consider how some non-human animal temperatures are taken. ;O)