Gday everyone. Does anyone know if coconuts successfully grow near brisbane? I am near samford, which gets a little cooler than coastal brisbane. By successfully.. if I'm going to plant them i'd rather like to think I'll get them to fruit. thanks
I've never tried - but on reflection I've never seen a coconut tree with fruit on it on the Sunshine Coast. Mackay yes... here no.
I saw them growing with nuts on recently at woodgate which is not too far from brizzy.the nuts were small but it was a dry year.I have got dwarf coconuts growing but they are still babies so no fruit for a few years at least.
g'day ppp, in short yes. the best variety dwark malay golden cocnut, you need to be sure you are buying genetically pure plants or very easily you will ed up buying X-ed up palms i have a nth qld contact who guarantees his stock. remember duty of care don't plant them when nuts could fall and damage/injure oterh public even those walkig up to yor front door. len
thanks for that len, yes, interesting to read one report that in one of our northern island nations 2.5% of all hospital admissions are related to falling coconuts! (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6502774) So, how many coconuts have you managed? Also, do you mind sharing the nth qld contact? Anyone else on the forum.. I'd be pleased to source plants more locally..?
yerse grow very well on the sunshine coast - a neighbour had to cut his down - the metre thick trunk was a bit too big and the 50kg palm fronds threatened to kill
thanks paradisi does anyone have experience with propogating coconuts? It seems like a big "seed" to plant!
I got mine from-https://www.cactusisland.com.au/products.php?catid=36&category=Coconuts as shot seedlings.But my neighbour bought some back from a beach and I planted them or rather half planted them into straight sand,and they have shot and seem to be growing well,Its hard to tell as they have enough energy to shoot and grow for a year regardless.I am planting them around the dam and will try to get them to lean over the water for safety reasons. the cactus island people told me to soak the nuts in seaweed soloution then keep in the shade for the first two years apparently they make good indor plants for the first few years.Make sure you give them exelent drainage.
$33 per plant, ouch. I'm patient, has anyone been successful with a green-grocer bought coconut, or does anyone have one or two of them I could give the seaweed solution and plant a go with?
g'day ppp, i'll send details via pm. i don't ahve room for them they are a large palm. you can grow them from the nut easily we did accidently once just sat the nut on the ground for visual effect surrounded it with mulch and it grew, too easy. now i suggested only grow the dwarf malay golen the main reason they are not very tall when they srrat producing, so it is very easy to pick nuts yes they will grow tall like the others eventually but slowly. that also brings the issue if you got a cocnut with its husk still on you have no idea if tht is a common nut or a malay golden or a X, there layeth the problem. all nuts i have seen sprouted have complete husk on. this fellow from up north will sell nuts as far as i know, and no doubt he will instruct as well. you will be well rewarded seeking the right plant. len
The CactusIsland people are sort of agents for the guys up here . I have spoken to one of them , who is a very experienced ex DPI . The dwarfs can be very hard to sprout , thus the expense . PLanting advice is very specific ,, digging a 1m x 1m x .5m deep hole , and improving soil and leaving top 10cm or so as a reservoir for water .
OK, my wife has suprised me with three coconut seedlings , green, bronze and golder dwarf malay coconuts. We have some info on planting.. but want to gather any collective wisdom. In terms of locations I have a choice of anywhere up a gentle north facing slope from down in a little valley which runs with water after good rain, and stays relatively green all year round, to up on the slope where it gets better drainage, is drier etc. My current thoughts are perhaps 10m from the creekline, add a good trailer load of manure, dig it through to make a mound, put down some raked grass for mulch and possibly weed mat I have lying around.. then plant into that. I'm also contemplating planting pigeon pea and / or queensland arrow root say, 1.5m from the plant around it to help protect it and create a bit of a "micro climate". I'm also contemplating making a small cover over it with light shade cloth just untill the risk of light frost passes.. thoughts?? particularly from those who've had these before.. Len? thanks in advance
I am sad to see someone recommend a short slow coconut tree. Coconuts are my favourite palm tree, not only for its yummy nut but for its lovely longness. Heaven knows getting nuts off them is no easy matter but if you are able to wait for them to fall, problem solved. Give your tree lots of water to make the nuts sweeter and yummier and to make it grow faster, particularly of course during the growing season. Short coconuts annoy me. But, to be fair, its your call as it will be your tree.
g'day ppp, first be sure to give them full sun, not sure of what help it would be going over the top with enriched medium i simply planed as i would any other food tree, they will like the extra moisture, their natural habitat is growing in the sand along side the beach. the green is probably going to 20++ feet high before it fruits you will need to be inventive on how to harvest the ready fruit i think by the time they drop they are past prime, never heard of a bronze (only a brown which is a x-ed up golden), did you buy them all locally? nuts normally harvested while still firmly atached to the tree, that is when they are ripe, usually cut off or twisted off. len
Hi, I forwarded the info you sent me to my wife, and she got them from there I think.. maybe I have it wrong with the bronze one.. I'll have another look at the tag. I think I'll plant them ~10m from the "creek" which is probably ~1.5m higher than where water runs when it rains.. The info we got suggests planting in a pit with mulch etc in the bottom... I 'm not sure they'll love being covered in water that much, so I think I'll have a pit with the downhill wall cut out to let out excess water. Hi sunburn.. sounds like the dwarf varieties fruit quicker too which is nice, when you've got to wait for everything to bear.. plenty of room for a full size coconut in the future! thanks
looking at the coconut from the end where it is attached to the stalk you will notice that the "bumps" form a triangle ,you will notice two long sides and one short side to the triangle, plant the coconut with the short side uppermost in the ground but not completely buried , you need the bottom half to remain moist, the roots will form there and the shoot will arise from the centre of the triangle. have grown it on the sunshine coast but even if fruit formed had no meat in them old sayings re coconut " feed me for three years and i will feed you for the rest of your life" "a coconut must be able to smell the ocean"
I've lived alongside coconut trees almost all my life. Our first coconut tree was about 20 miles as the crow flies from the ocean at a guess. I would suggest that the tree could smell the ocean from there should the above be true. The ground was normal soil. No sand. The height of these trees when we came to live with them was already well over 30 feet i think. Strangely no one ever had one fall on them and i didn't even have the awareness that it was a danger. Probably because my parents were not locals and had not considered this. Perhaps I am lucky to have survived or perhaps i just didn't spend a long time sitting under it gazing at the view across the valley. Don't plant it anywhere where people will pass often either. I've got to find some space here to plant some more. I want a little coconut grove of my own. A ripe fruit falls off the tree. If you have to cut it off, its not actually ripe yet but green still. If you want green coconuts for their fresh milk then you will have to pick them green. If you want them mainly for the coconut then waiting for them to drop is entirely reasonable. They will also be full of milk. Meanwhile green nuts will only have milk and no hard creamy coconut. I love the saying above about feeding for three years. In comparison to other fruit trees, three years is hardly a long time to wait for a tree to bear fruit. We have grown coconuts from seed but not paid them any attention so I couldn't say how long it takes before they are bearing. To grow a coconut from seed you may not have to do anything. Up here, you just leave it sit on the ground and eventually a frond will come out the top and a root will be poking out the bottom which you will discover if you try to move it. I notice that all the palm seeds will germinate if just left sitting on the top of the ground. They obviously have enough liquid and fertiliser inside them to get them started. Find a brown nut with milk inside it and try to grow that one. The only thing of consideration about growing one down south would be the cooler temperatures. So maybe you should try to keep the soil or nut warm for germination. That's just a guess. Also given that they will germinate sitting on top of hte ground, why not just place it in a shallow basin of a hole just so it doesn't dislodge. And yes, it should be well-drained soil.
in rockhampton observed a dwarf golden growing at the mail center in a garden not totally sunny but it was nice height about 3 mteres at the time and always full of fruit in season, some took the fruit never heard of them being empty, no special care at all, just normal garden medium and whatever rain fell. i would say no chance it could smell the sea at yeppon from where it was. maybe also the quality of fruit depends on the quality of the tree that the nut came from. we sprouted a nut when in rocky also(can't say it was a golden) we just lay the nut in the garden for display realy, lay it on its flatter side, this way growing end closer to the ground mulched to about 1/3 up the height and hey presto some months later it sprouted and grew on from there. guess in eh wild they get no special treatment and still manage to grow. near us down by the bay side there are a couple of by appearance goldens growing but not good looking palms at all one did fruit recently but fruit not very many 3 or 4 and only little never develped. they both should have been in good fruit by now. most sprouted nuts i've seen simply laying on their flat side in a bag pot with a bit of mulch around the top. len
indonesian experience From my experience in Indonesia, observing where coconuts were and were not growing I would have to conclude they grow pretty much anywhere there is a decent amount of soil and some rain... In my opinion it doesn't matter if its not too close to the ocean, it also doesn't matter whether there is sand or not. I saw some growing on the terraces between rice fields, and others growing where they only get rain water. If you want to sprout them from the actual nut, then yeah i agree, and you just have to leave them lying around somewhere. They will start fruiting once they are a few metres high. And the wood makes great timber once they get too big..that is if you can manage to cut through them as they are very very hard.
thank! yes in bali 6 degrees south? i sa w them at 800m above sea in Timor L 'este my frinds saw up to 1800m the genetics are mixed much australian pams are 'rubbush' id reccomend malay dwarf gold for juice in the tropics tall palms allow stacking of high palm then mango then other but in the subtropics just buy a dwarf and appreciate the benefit it brings in nuts and mulch