Pohutukawa
Episode: New Zealand? Bay of Plenty
Presenter: Melissa King
If you have ever been to the land of the long white cloud in early summer then you couldn?t help but fall in love with the pohutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa) or New Zealand Christmas tree.
They are generally known by their Maori name and pohutukawa is said to mean ?splash by spray? but if you look really closely you can actually see that the underside of the leaves, buds and stems are actually covered with tiny white hairs that help to guard the tree against sea spray.
The flowers also contain sweet nectar that is attractive to pollinators and was traditionally used to relieve sore throats. You will often hear it called the New Zealand Christmas tree because December is the peak of flowering and it looks like it has been decorated just for the festive season. In fact, the red blossoms were used by early, rich colonists to decorate the Christmas trees.
If you want big fantastic blooms, then as soon as spring hits and you start to see those signs of new growth you have to get out there and give them a flower boosting fertiliser like Yates Thrive Soluble Fruit and Flower.
Thrive is soluble so that means it is absorbed quickly and has lots of potassium and phosphorous in it which means heaps of flowers. The key is to keep applying it during the contact season.
You would think that being from New Zealand this plant would cope with frost, but no, it loves the warmer coastal regions of Australia. It grows into a big tree but it also clips really well into a lovely hedge.
If you ask a Kiwi the one downside to this plant, they will tell you the possums love munching on the growth which of course means fewer flowers. A neat little trick that Melissa picked up from one of the locals is to mix up some concentrated seaweed tonic in a bucket and then get a cloth and soak it in the solution. After that simply peg it onto your tree.
Melissa is told that if you repeat this process, then the possums wont go near it and you can use the rest of the product on the garden because it is the ultimate plant tonic.
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Dynamic Lifter Seaweed Tonic
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