Sunday, July 17, 2011

Malaysian Dwarf Peacock Tree

My favorite tree in the neighborhood is a few streets over. Every time I drive by I always love looking at this orange flowering tree. It is always in bloom (the photo I took doesn't do it justice, it is usually more in bloom).

Since we planned to have orange as the predominate color in our garden, when I first moved here I thought I should look out for the this plant in the nursery. But, never saw it.

Recently I was driving by and saw the seed pods dangling from it and thought I'd try and get some seeds to sprout. I took a sample flower to a nursery and the woman said it is a Peacock Tree. I did some research online and think that this tree is the dwarf version (let's hope so because the regular trees get much larger). I found out that while it's called Peacock here its botanical name is Caesalpinia Pulcherrima. In other regions throughout the world it is also known as Poinciana, Dwarf Flamboyan, Pride of Barbados, Barbados Pride, Barbados Flower-fence, Peacock Flower, Paradise Poinciana or Red Bird-of-Paradise.

On my first attempt, I followed some directions online. It said soak the seeds for a day or a few days then peel the seeds out of their skins and plant them. I soaked eight seeds for two days, then peeled them and planted them. I had two small seeds that I wasn't able to peel so I planted them in their skins. I marked them and waited. Surprisingly, it was the unpeeled seeds that sprouted, none of the others did! So I went back and got some more seeds and soaked them and planted them directly, no fussy peeling. I now have twelve plants growing. Apparently from what I read online they are easy to grow, and this seems to be true. I will keep growing them and the strongest few I will most likely plant in my front yard along the hedges.

6 comments:

  1. I too love this peacock flowers and on my morning walk have taken some seeds too but by the time I went back I forgot all about them in the pocket of my track suit pant! Probably all the seeds had been washed away in the washing machine! I must try to get the seeds again and plant them like yours. Thanks for the tips of planting those seeds.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi,
    Now i know this plant's name! It really has beautiful flowers!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh we have one of these trees just down the road from my house. Gorgeous aren't they? Thanks for enlightening me on the name!

    Duncan In Kuantan

    ReplyDelete
  5. And I might just try getting some of the seeds and planting them for myself!

    ReplyDelete
  6. glad to see you had some luck. Hopefully mine do well!

    ReplyDelete