Luma Apiculata."Chilean Myrtle"..An underated subject.

[bodhidharma]

How tall is it?

Gavin

[/quote]
Approx 450mm Gavin.

[Peejay]

Hi all.
I am new to the site. I was trawling the net looking for info on Luma apiculata and found you had a thread so I joined up.
Hope you don`t mind a Pom on board?

Luma does seem like an underrated species and looking at the great pics you guys have posted I am quite excited about developing mine.
I was first attracted by the lovely ginger bark and the small leaves. (There were 2 scraggy old things at a local garden centre and I regret only buying one.... same old story eh?)

When I bought it (2 years ago) it was 1.5 metres tall (It is now about 50 cm) had loads of little black berries on it. I only figured out later that maybe I needed 2 trees to cross pollinate (is this correct?).
However I cut it right back and to my surprise this sturdy little blighter has flowered this year. see pics.
I`ve still got a lot of work to do on the trunks. I had to do some big cuts on the lower trunk to get rid of some wayward roots I am not sure how Luma scars heal (any ideas). I also hope to thicken up the lateral branches lower down and train them more horizontally. Early days though.
Any advice would be gratefully received.
Cheers
PJ

[Tony Bebb]

Nice species. Haven't come across this one but it is a very nice tree. I would totally agree with Lennard on the top of the tree to improve the power of the trunk and to give the tree better direction.

Gerard your friends tree is beautiful and nicely refined. Despite the trunk numbers I would look at removing the lower left trunk/branch for the same reasons.

Tony

[bodhidharma]

I had to do some big cuts on the lower trunk to get rid of some wayward roots I am not sure how Luma scars heal (any ideas). I also hope to thicken up the lateral branches lower down and train them more horizontally. Early days though.
Any advice would be gratefully received.
Cheers
PJ[/quote]

Unfortunately they heal very slowly. They are very slow growers and, as stated earlier, take a long time to get some trunk size.

[Peejay]

Thanks Bhodhidharma.
I`m not too bothered about thickening the trunk as I kind of like how it is. But it will be interesting to see how I can get lower branches just to thicken a little so they are in proportion.

I am really pleased with the profuse budding all over the trunk and lots of leaves are produced . It seems to be quite resilient as I cut it back to one or two minor branches as soon as I got it home.
Getting the scarring to look attractive .... will just have to wait and see what happens.
PJ