Hi markbudde, I don't know where you are located but I often see 2-3 different varieties of ming (fine fern-like leaf and larger leaved) at my local Meijer's store ($5-$20...5" to 2.5') in Ohio. The ming in the photo I'm posting was purchased thru Amazon.com from Hirt's gardens also in Ohio. I got it(3 plants in the pot shown) a year ago at about 6" tall and now it's 14" and still sprouting new growth. Hope this helps. As a side note can anyone tell me exactly what variety it is? Here is a link that might be useful:

The first 3 pictures are our Ming Aralia - Polyscias fruticosa. This was an HD plant we grew in a pot on the patio until it got too big - about half its current size of almost five feet tall. It's been in the ground for 3 years and was in the pot 3 years. Notice how the Yucca has claimed the space. This and all 4 of our 'Aralias' are on the north side of the garden and have withstood all three hurricanes with minimal damage. The next two picture are False Aralia - Schefflera elegantissima. This one came from Boynton Botanicals, who grow some of the largest I've ever seen, about 8 years ago. It was in a pot for two years and then moved into this spot. It's now 10' tall and you can see the differences in the old versus the new growth. This has bloomed every year for the past three. This is an Aralia I got from Jerry at TreeZoo last spring. It's doubled in height since going in the ground. I don't know the genus or species. And this one has been in this pot less than a year. Neat cup-shaped leaf. From HD and it's doubled size as well.

Frank, (and other members - but please note that I am particularly delighted to have found another forum member from Toowoomba) There are Bat's Wing Coral trees on the downhill side of Prince Henry Drive, which I assume to be naturally occurring. They are scrawny specimens compared with the glorious things we saw in the Aramac-Muttaburra area recently, which were a mass of red flowers and shrieking lorikeets, on a good big rounded canopy, in the most miserable country! I don't know whether the locals I've seen are just young, or whether that's how they grow round here. Atalaya hemiglauca goes well out there, too. With the predicted big global-warming fuelled dry-out of our climate, those of us who plant trees like this may be feeling very self-satisfied with our future planning, in twenty or so years time! On the same grounds, I think Brachychiton rupestris and populneus might be better than the others where a green tree is wanted. Their fire-resistance could have a much-needed firebreak effect when bushfires roar up the range as they were doing in Oct 2004. I have a suspicion that Ficus obliqua might be better than platypoda, but am never quite sure which tree it is I'm looking at when I see a fig in a sunny spot some hopelessly dry paddock around here. Do you know? Despite having written the book, I still have so many things to learn! The trick to identifying them is to catch them in fruit... To my great delight, some celerywood (Polyscias elegans) have come up spontaneously ("volunteered" as the Americans say) in my garden - and this in mid 2005 - Toowoomba's driest winter for more than a century. The area where they apeared is not one that I ever water. I suppose this is my reward for re-establishing a bit of a canopy. Tree cover of some sort is probably the "natural" environment as opposed to the dairy farms that would have been here for a century until supplanted by suburban sprawl. Someone else's comment in this forum about Angophora floribunda being a sign of a clean aquifer is interesting, isn't it? I wouldn't have thought of it as a rainforest tree - not even "arid rainforest" (love that expression)- but this is probably my unreasonable tendency to exclude Eucalypts from the "softwood scrub" category. It's hard to know where to draw the lines, isn't it, between "softwood scrubs" "dry vine scrubs", "dry rainforest" "marginal rainforest", and "rainforest". Especially when some of the same species seem to appear in the full range. Geijera parviflora definitely fits in the dry, sun-hardy end. It has a reputation of being very hard to germinate and establish, but I think there are local nurseries which have it. Love the plant, and it must be as tough as old boots once established. Are you growing it? I believe Petalostigma pubescens would be hardier than triloculare. In practice, I find that different people look at the same trees in my yard (I bought some labelled triloculare, I think) and are about evenly divided as to...

The fastest growing tree I have planted is the Brayleyana flindersia ( Queensland Maple ) is height would be around 240cms (8ft) I got two of them as small plants early last year as two of the three free trees a year from my Council. This year I got Stenocarpus sinuatus ( Firewheel Tree ) Xanhostemon chysanthus and Backhousia myrtifolia (Grey Myrtle) apart from the penda the others are at a standstill. But the fastest I have ever seen is one of my neighbours has planted three Grevillea robusta about 4-5 ft from the side boundry fence in the one hole would you believe and it is about 5mts ( 15 ft ) tall already in three years, Thank goodness the other two are stunted I wish it would go away.I wish they would all go away including his chinese elms. I cannot grow Lillypillies on my block so have given up after loosing about ten though one has survived Syzygium oleosum ( Blue Lily Pilly ) it has only grown about a metre in four years, it got it first flowers last year and I planted four of the berries and now have four healthy looking plants about 20cms tall to give to one of our members. So I think soil and conditions have more to do with the fast growth of trees than the species. Cheers..MM.