Best Landscaping Cordylines part 1

If you are looking to add a little colour to your tropical garden cordyline fruticosa cultivars are a great place to start. Cordylines come in a wide range of sizes and shapes from large growing varieties like Negra and Pele’s Smoke to small compact minis like Amanda’s Blush and Firecracker. In 2008 we wrote our first blog article on cordylines. Since then I’ve learned a lot more about cordylines as I developed a very serious cordyline addiction. I think it would be fair to say we have the largest range of cordyline fruticosa varieties for sale online in Australia. I’d like to share a little of what I’ve learned in a series of articles designed around specific tasks and types of cordylines. In this article I’ll be exploring what are considered full sun cordylines.

Cordylines add a splash of color to Tropical Gardens

  TOP CORDYLINE PICKS FOR FULL SUN

Peter Buck is definitely one of the best full sun landscaping cordylines available. In Hawaii it hugely popular and is gaining popularity with professional landscapers in Australia, especially in SE Qld. It has a great growth habit and is stunning when it is left to grow as a singular head as well as cut back to multihead. The leaves are large, down turned and slightly undulating. The colour can vary from a bright pinky bronze to a deeper pink . Best colour is definitely obtained in full sun conditions with an added bonus of colour being maintained year round. If you are driving through the MacKay area you will see it used to stunning effect in the traffic island beds. Try using Peter Buck contrasted with other pink toned cordylines like Bronze Glow or Anja and cordylines with narrower leaves like Roostertail or Dorothy.

Peter Buck mass  planted in full sun

Lilinoe is a very tough full sun stunner. Another popular Hawaiian landscaping cordyline, its upright deep pink red leaves appear to glow in sunlight. Similar but a superior cultivar to Firebrand it is closely related to Auntie Lou a Ti that is widely used in Hawaiian funerary gardens. Lilinoe is another cordyline that maintains year round colour and looks great contrasted with deep green giant mondograsses, other pink tone cordylines or darker colored cordylines like Kealakai. While it may not seem to be the most exciting cordyline or similar to other cordylines it in fact is one of the best landscaping cordylines available. I strongly recommend this one!

Bronze Glow complements pink tone cordylines well

Roostertail in an older Australian variety that is coming back into style. It tends to look its best when turned into a multiheaded bush. Another very tough landscaping cordyline, it’s a kaleidoscope of colourful cascading narrow leaves that hold year round colour. You can use this cordyline sparingly or if you are after a more lairy effect mass plant it. This is a very tough cordyline which makes it one of the most suitable cordylines for the cooler climate tropical style gardens.

Lilinoe, Definitely a favorite!and Roostertail above

Maize is a larger growing cordyline that is almost like an oversized Roostertail. It has large leaves narrow leave with pink tones that colour up best in tough full sun conditions. Maize makes a great screening cordyline for a narrower area, it will eventually grow to about 3 meters. Originally from Tahiti, this versatile plant is becoming very popular in Australia.

Another Tahitian beauty is Tahitian Silk. The large drooping leaves are variegated and slightly undulating. It is a strong fast grower that makes an attractive specimen plant.

A few other large growing cordylines that take full sun include Negra, Pink Diamond and Pele’sSmoke and Kilauea . As these particular varieties get larger their leaves spin around the stem. Aside from looking quite striking they can also help create a microclimate for more tender plants. Negra is widely used in landscaping because of its large almost black leaves.

We offer bulk buys on many of these full sun landscaping cordylines for customers who are planting large areas or interested in mass planting. Please make sure you check out our Specials section.

Pele's Smoke

Kilauea

NOTE: It’s important to remember that a cordyline grown in optimal conditions (well drained moist soil with plenty of organic matter that is fertilized and watered regularly in high humidity and a warm climate) will look alot better than a neglected cordyline. Also remember if you are in a less than tropical climate creating a sheltered microclimate will help keep your cordylines looking lush and vibrant. Generally, In tough environments cordylines will look better in part shade.

Cordylines grown well in full sun

Mixed planting with cordylines

Autumn Tropical Plant Sale 15% off for Facebook Fans

Autumn! What a great time to be outside gardening. Here in the Far North it’s better than spring because there is still plenty of ground water and light showers to help plants establish.  The weather is so beautiful we’ve decided to run an autumn special to get everyone outside and gardening before the cold weather sets in. So for the month of May we are offering 15% off on EVERYTHING on our website. LIKE US ON FACEBOOK and then use the coupon code AUTUMN and we will send you an adjusted invoice with 15% off your plants. The special runs between now and May 31^st. We advise getting in early as some stocks are low. If you are already a Facebook Fan  of course you get the discount :)

                                                                                                                                           

                                                                                                                                 Happy Gardening!!   

                                                                                                                                          Ann & Scott

Buying Pandanus Amaryllifolius Online From El Arish Tropical Exotics

A little background info on Duan Pandan

Pandanus amaryllifolius is a low growing (under one meter) plant with long narrow blade like leaves and woody aerial roots. It can be grown as a marginal plant in dams and ponds, used as a bedding plant in tropical landscaping and be used to hold creek banks. However it is most widely cultivated for use in Asian cooking and basket making.
It has a nutty botanical fragrance and is most commonly used in rice dishes or tied in a bundle and cooked with food.

Some of its other uses include as a foliage plant in flower arrangements and the leaves also have a repellent effect on cockroaches. Placing a small bundle in drawers is a great natural deterrent to roaches.
It is also known by many local regional names. In Bangladesh it is called ketaki, it is pandan wangi in Indonesian, soon-mhway in Burmese, bai tooey in Thai, rampe in Sinhala, sleuk toi in Khmer, Daun Pandan in Nonya cooking lá dứa in Vietnamese and "Basmatiyaa tree" in Magahi and Bhojpuri (BIHAR,U.P.) due to its fragrance. It’s amazing it is used in so many cultures in cooking including Indonesian, Singaporean, Filipino, Malaysian, Thai, Bangladeshi, Vietnamese, Chinese, Sri Lankan, Khmer and Burmese foods, especially rice dishes and cakes. There are soooo many recipes for cooking with pandan leaves on the web. Here is a good place to start. 

Dragon Boat Festival Dumplings

You can purchase plants pandanus amaryllifolius from us here.

How to keep your Duan Pandan alive

Here in the Wet Tropics Pandanus amaryllifolius grows like a weed. Pandan loves our high rainfall, high humidity and year round warm temperatures. Unfortunately the majority of our customers have to work at recreating a Wet Tropical Microclimate in places like Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney. One obvious way is to grow your pandans in a hothouse where you can control humidity, temperature and moisture levels. Probably the most popular way of growing a few pandans for leaves is to keep them in pots. This way you can keep them in a moist part sun microclimate in your garden in the summer (it helps to mist them a few times daily) and then move them to a warm undercover area with bright light for winter, a brightly lit bathroom is perfect. In winter be careful not to overwater, once a week is usually good. If you overwater in winter the roots can rot. Remember they are tropical plants that need good humidity and warmth for active growth. They absolutely need to be protected from temps below 10 to survive. Having said that many people do successfully grow pandans in Sydney Melbourne and Adelaide.

If at all possible avoid heavily chlorinated water or salty bore water when watering your pandan, rainwater is best as it doesn’t like chlorine or salt in the soil.

Pandanus amaryllifolius are not very fussy about the type of fertilizer you use but we do suggest fertilizing regularly in summer. Before your plants are sent to you we dip the leaves and roots in a seaweed solution that keeps it healthy for its trip and promotes growth.

It’s best not to let your plant become too pot bound, better to pot on to the next size pot up so it doesn’t dry out too quickly. Be careful about using too many leaves off of the plant. Plants need leaves for photosynthesis and to grow. If you like to use a lot of pandan leaves or can’t control yourself because you haven’t had the fresh stuff in so long it might be better to buy a pandan value pack. You can put 3 pandans in a 200mm pot for a stunning display that will give you ample leaves to harvest. I also think plants that like high humidity tend to help create their own little microclimate when grown in groups. 

The best time to repot pot a plant is summer, use a high quality well draining potting mix. A heavy mix will inhibit root growth and increase the likelihood of your plant rotting in winter.

Wholesale Pandanus Amaryllifolius

While the demand is there, it is very difficult for nurseries outside of a wet tropical climate to grow Pandanus amaryllifolius quickly enough to sell them at an affordable price point. We are currently wholesaling to a number of retail and online nurseries and have recently expanded our numbers of Pandanus amaryllifolius . If you are interested in purchasing wholesale plants please contact us. We can provide them as either potted plants ready to be on sold or as barerooted plants which are much cheaper to freight. 

Not as nice as fresh :(

Pandan cupcakes Yumm!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our fans and clients!!! Here's a little present for you from now until January 31st we are offering 15% off on all orders over $100. Just use "peace" as your coupon code.

                                                                         Happy Holidays,  Scott and Ann Cains