mangrove bonsai

[arabicabonsai]

Here's a random one for everybody, i've been highly interested in trying to bonsai a mangrove tree. would be tricky but an awsome challenge. what does everybody think?

[Ash]

Hi Arabica,

There are a number of mangroves grown as bonsai in other parts of the world, and also plants that grow on mangrove fringes. Not so many grown here in Oz. In Queensland mangroves and mangrove systems are protected (at least from clearing or removal from the wild) so you would have to find out what the legalities were of keeping one. DPIF and DERM might help you find out.

It probably all depends on your definition of 'mangrove' too. Some mangrove species such as Carallia brachiata and Heritiera littoralis just to name a couple are already in the nursery trade up here (both live on the fresher sort of side of estuaries). Some have toxic sap. In Budi Sulistyo's Tropical Bonsai Gallery there is an Excoecaria agallocha or 'blind your eye'. I have very vivid painfull memories of getting its sap in my eyes as a ten year old.

cheers
Ash

[shibui]

I've brought home sprouting seeds of southern mangraves a couple of times to try it. The seedlings just look worse and worse until they die off. Maybe they need saline conditions? Anyway, hasn't worked for me here on the inland side of the divide.

[Damian Bee]

I've brought home sprouting seeds of southern mangraves a couple of times to try it. The seedlings just look worse and worse until they die off. Maybe they need saline conditions? Anyway, hasn't worked for me here on the inland side of the divide.

Worth trying again Shibui, I have a Rhododendron that dies each time I buy one and repot, they don't seem to like a certain aspect of what I am doing. It has become a yearly ritual for me and one day I will get it right

[Roger]

Mangroves don't 'require' saline or brackish water to grow. They grow where they do because 'nothing' else can live there, they have the physiology and other bits that allow them to live there quite happily and they don't compete in other habitats so aren't found there. There are some beaut examples of out of habitat findings in Western Australia where some grow well away from the mudflats of protected coastal shores.

I recall Kew Gardens experimenting with growting mangroves in their glasshouses. They succeeded. I seem to recall that pH was one of the variables that was important.

Have you tried a web search for horticultural conditions for mangroves? Also, as Ash says, they are grown elsewhere as bonsai, so someone out there knows the basic horticulture. Good luck and hope to hear how you do.
Roger

[MattA]

It would be an interesting challenge unless you are also into salt water aquaria... They often use mangrove plants as part of a complete bio filtration system on large & heavily stocked reef tanks. The trees are grown in pots of inert media & sat in a flow of water from the tank, a bit like a hydroponic setup.. did I just say that nasty word hydroponic...

I was tempted to at one stage but ended up selling the tank instead, it was going to be all to hard to pipe the water out thru the floor & back in again plus the change in temp would have meant a higher heating & cooling bill. Reefs are one expensive hobby...

Matt