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Florida Gardening

Eric - can you help re Leu Tree?

16 years ago

Hi Eric!!

Thanks for your help Saturday. As always, you have the best plants of all!

Now I need to pick your brain, though. I got a Erythrina arborescens. I had it confused with Erythrina Crista-gallii - I bought one last year from you but some helpful workmen managed to kill it :-(

So its not the cry baby tree and its not in my "Flowering Trees of Florida" book. When I Google it I get very few hits and they are contradictory! One says it is a shrub and the next says its a 30-40 foot tree. Do you know which description is correct?

Here is the shrub description:

Native to the Himalayas. A short shrubby Erythrina, to 10', with slightly prickly trunk and branches. Large broad leaves are often absent when flowering - the flowers are large, bright and showy. For warm climate or tropical greenhouse.

Thanks and also thanks for all the information Saturday!

Anita

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Comments (3)

eric_9b
16 years ago
Hi Anita, nice to see you at the sale.

The description you wrote sounds like what the tree is supposed to be;
10-20ft tall, with some spines, scarlet flowers. Native from India to southern China so it should be fairly cold hardy.

I planted one in the Garden last month, it was from the same batch as the ones being sold so don't have any other info on how it grows here. It should grow well and since it is a smaller tree, make a good specimen.

Eric
Orlando,FL
anitaathome
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks Eric. I will get it into a loving place soon.

I am curious - are you exhausted after the plant sale? I would think getting everytihng ready and then interacting with all those people would be exhilarating but also a big drain.

I will say it again - you have THE BEST job in Orlando. Possibly FL. Possibly USA. :-)

Anita
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I picked up 3 really nice cane (angel wing) begonias with vivid leaf markings, my Mussaenda flava, daylilies from Beachlily, a couple of beautiful broms from the bromeliad society (glad I passed up the extremely expensive ones from the other vendor!), a 'husker red' penstemon, a blue-eyed grass, a pretty tile trivet for my neighbor who was having a dinner party Sat night, a tall red salvia, and a ratcheting clipper. I may be missing something but that's about it. I filled up my little red cart. The prizes were the muss, the angel wings and the broms. The rest was just frosting on the cake. I had a great time, as always. I tried to get into the Leu sales area to say 'howdy' to Eric but he was the Belle of the Ball and you couldn't get near him! LOL! Kate
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The way we decided it was grafted is that my friend noticed that the trunk had thorns and so she assumed it was silk floss. Then we noticed that the three silk floss branches on top also have thorns and decidedly different leaves from the one branch that I know was the original. I will try to take a picture but my camera is not charging for some reason. I thought about a mixed tree but since the 3 silk floss branches have all appeared just since Spring and I have gotten no new shavng brush branches I am worried that the silk floss is so much more vigorous that it will take all the energy and I will lose the shaving brush. But I am really just speculating as I have no experience! Calling Eric at Leu is a good idea. Anita PS Katkin - could I get a cutting of your pink shaving brush so I can try to root it? I can trade stuff and have a pretty eclectic collection. If you tell me what interests you I will propose some items. Thanks.
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eric_9b
16 years ago
It can be exhausting. Wed., Thurs., and Fri. are spent moving all the plants, arranging them and tagging them. Luckily this year we got a nursery label printer so no hand writing the tags! Then Sat. and Sun. there all day. I take Mon. off to rest so its all good. It is a fun job. I've been here over 15 years so it can't be too bad! Its a great place to work.

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