This time last year I was very excited, as the polar caps had melted, allowing new growth to form on my Wollemia nobilis.
Over the winter of 2007-2008 Matildus came inside, suffering the indignity of having Christmas baubles strung on him, grew polar caps perfectly happily, and was then put outside in the spring of 2008, where by June he was shoving out new growth as fast as he could.
Over winter 2008-2009 I left him outside fleeced up. After all, the trees at Kew have been outside unprotected, and as said on "Save Lullingstone Castle", it's been through 18 ice ages. This is the only (blurry) photo I could find from the past two months of the Wollemia:
This doesn't matter though, because it's looked precisely like that since October 2008. The 2008 growth has hardly darkened (and certainly not as much as the 2007 growth did), and most worryingly of all, there doesn't seem to have been any polar cap. It just looks as though it's finished growing and isn't planning on doing anything else ever.
I'm a bit puzzled. It's been fed, watered as normal, rotated throughout the winter and moved only very gingerly when I bought the potting bench for the site of the old Isleworth Pinetum. The one thing I haven't tried is a bigger pot (*groan*). It shouldn't really need repotting, as it's a) very slow-growing and b) has a comparatively small rootball for the size of the tree.
Anyone else's Wollemia nobilis not growing at the moment? Its closest relatives, Araucaria araucana and A. heterophylla are growing quite nicely, but that probably doesn't mean anything.
Over the winter of 2007-2008 Matildus came inside, suffering the indignity of having Christmas baubles strung on him, grew polar caps perfectly happily, and was then put outside in the spring of 2008, where by June he was shoving out new growth as fast as he could.
Over winter 2008-2009 I left him outside fleeced up. After all, the trees at Kew have been outside unprotected, and as said on "Save Lullingstone Castle", it's been through 18 ice ages. This is the only (blurry) photo I could find from the past two months of the Wollemia:
This doesn't matter though, because it's looked precisely like that since October 2008. The 2008 growth has hardly darkened (and certainly not as much as the 2007 growth did), and most worryingly of all, there doesn't seem to have been any polar cap. It just looks as though it's finished growing and isn't planning on doing anything else ever.
I'm a bit puzzled. It's been fed, watered as normal, rotated throughout the winter and moved only very gingerly when I bought the potting bench for the site of the old Isleworth Pinetum. The one thing I haven't tried is a bigger pot (*groan*). It shouldn't really need repotting, as it's a) very slow-growing and b) has a comparatively small rootball for the size of the tree.
Anyone else's Wollemia nobilis not growing at the moment? Its closest relatives, Araucaria araucana and A. heterophylla are growing quite nicely, but that probably doesn't mean anything.
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