Rays serrata

[squizzy]

Hi all,

I had a quick call in to rays nesci yesterday and he was proudly showing of this serrata which he said is infact a dwarf form called cape dwarf ( from memeory).

Anyhow he had asked me to post it as he thought a few of us might appreciate the flowering of it. It has six nice big flowers. The growth is nice and compact and the trunk seems to have reasonabler taper. I beleive he has been striking this variety by cutting.

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Squizz

[Damian Bee]

nice, plenty of good assets there.

[Boics]

Certainly looks a damn sight better than the crappy looking Serrata I picked up from the big green shed on the weekend!

Look forward to seeing where this one goes!

Any growing tips for this species?

[kcpoole]

Lovely thanks for posting

I keep all mine in Full sun and feed about 1/2 the amount of all my other trees. Banksia are quite susceptible to karking it if large amounts of fert are added at a time. You can feed heavily aparently, but you must build up gradually the amount you give

They back bud onto bare wood easily. Take wiring well but watch it cutting in.
quite thirsty so do not let dry out.
Root prune with all other natives in Spring / Summer

Ken

[Boics]

Thanks Ken.

Mine is probably pot bound - I haven't checked yet.
I want to give it a fair bit more room to move/grow and up-size.

I can only assume that a root prune of an unhealthy specimen is not a good idea?

For this reason I was going to just give mine a tiny root tease and up-size the pot...

[Grant Bowie]

I visited the Green Cape area earlier in the year and found the banksia growing on a very windswept headland and growing no more than about a meter and a half tall. Very compact in its habit. I have been growing an old one as a bonsai for a while now and did a heavyish root prune in early September as part of a Banksia talk/demo and its is going gang buster. A good specimen for bonsai.

Grant

In the wild at Green Cape.JPG

New flower emerging.JPG

Old flower.JPG