AusBonsai

Entering 4 species. The first photos will all be identical. All seeds were ordered from Living Green & Feeling Seedy, and arrived promptly. They were not float tested, as each packet has at least 100 seeds (excluding the Ficus Brachypoda).

I will probably use half the seeds now and half at the start of August. The Brisbane winter here is typically 10-20c and so maybe the heat tray is unnecessary. The time from germination until shooting is 1 month. The tray was filled with a seed-raising soil mix from Yates. The seeds were sprinkled atop, then lightly brushed with fingers to turn the soil. Then I sprayed with a fine mist until quite wet. This tray is on a seed warming mat and the vents are open. I have some caution about the chances of mold in this tray and migrating the seedlings from the tray to their own containers in late winter. They will be in direct morning sunlight until midday and then heavy shade until nightfall.

Melaleuca Bracteata will be a long term project. Although these might look nice after 5 years, the multi-trunk bonsai / mallee-style are what I really want to achieve. The most ambitious aspect would be attempting a bark-burn to darken the trunk. The wild ones have such bright, pale foliage and dark trunks (which could simply be because it's in the shade). Repeating that on my little trees would be quite satisfying.

During the seed stage, there was a lot of rain (prior to Tropical Storm Alfred). This flooded my seed trays and mixed things altogether. I chose these as Bracteata because the leaves seem slightly smaller and darker.

I potted up several Melaleuca. Unfortunately during a little holiday at Noosa, a well-meaning relative decided that the ground was too wet, and turned off the irrigation. Most of the stress was to larger Mels. Anyway a few of the smaller ones dried up, and there's one which I didn't photograph and is inching towards the green bin lid.

They were repotted about March and are all ready for another up-pot. The heat of summer is already being felt around Brissie and there are many other tasks. If it seems right I will up-pot soon but that may be delayed until March 2026.

2 of them have quite dramatic shapes. The others do not. There's a major difference in how fast some of them are growing, and to be honest life is too tumultuous to remember why.