Paraná pines have been very hardy for me in zone 8, even when small. I’ve had trouble with root rot though, especially during wet weather. I think somewhere with long seasons that are wet and cool it will be very important to have excellent drainage. My guess is in warmer climates it is less important since the trees would be growing faster and healthier (I’ve seen them growing along streams in Brazil, for example). Paraná pine definitely love the heat of our summers, that’s when mine grow a lot and look healthiest. Monkey Puzzle is of course far, far hardier, and it for sure likes cool weather more (they are outright killed by our summers here…). The two species do hybridize, so there are hybrid Araucarias out there that are hardy and heat tolerant, but it is extremely hard to get ahold of those hybrids. Paraná pine and the hybrids grow fairly quickly, Monkey Puzzle is, as I’m sure you know, slow growing.
There’s a female hybrid Araucaria growing in Raleigh NC. If any of my Paraná pines are males, I’m going to offer pollen to the owners of the female hybrid so we can get a US source of hybrid Araucaria seed (their tree is from a small batch of seed that was a gift some years ago to a plant collector here in NC. That collector grew out the seeds, kept one plant, gave one to the owners I mentioned, and sold the others. Unfortunately, both the trees they have are female.)
Bunya Bunya is apparently the third most cold-hardy Araucaria. It appears to be zone 9 hardy which is shocking since it’s native to tropical Queensland.
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Interesting experiment. I didn’t know those species could hybridize and produce fertile offspring. I’ve read that monkey puzzle trees can produce delicious edible seeds, similar to pine nuts. They only start producing at the age of 40 or something. If Paraná pines are faster growing to fruiting age, the hybrid might even be economically interesting.
Their habitats might have been colder during the ice ages. That’s why they can handle more frost than common in their habitat nowadays, I suppose.
Paraná pine nuts are also consumed. Araucaria seeds are very large and easy to collect. They’re fairly starchy, unusually for a conifer. Supposedly taste nutty and potato like, perhaps like a chestnut.
Ice ages may have had an effect, yes. Though I don’t think northern Australia was really affected much. Also, it seems like the whole genus tends to be a zone or two hardier then you expect, with examples from different continents all being that way, so it may just be something about Araucaria in general. It’s an incredibly old genus that didn’t seem to change much over millions of years, who knows what kinda of adaptions those trees have “just in case” to handle issues that only come up every few hundred thousand years. Wollemi pine, which is related to Araucarias, is similarly ancient and weirdly hardy given where it’s from.
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There’s a few of these around the valley, so they’re definitely good to 9b. Both look old enough to have survived the December 1990 freeze where low temperatures were in the mid teens for several days in a row. They don’t look like they suffered major damage from that or have recovered amazingly well.
Mild pinenut flavored chestnut is how I would describe the bunya seeds I’ve had.
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Very cool. There was a guy down in Texas propagating Bunya Bunya, not sure where though.
One thing that’s nice about the South American species is the cone disintegrates before dropping, whereas Bunya Bunya drops basketball sized orbs of death from the lower stratosphere. One hundred and fifty feet is a long way to fall, especially for something that weighs 20-40 lb. I think someone in San Francisco was killed by one a few years ago.
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Getting ready to start fencing again.
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Had a great day at the project property with family. I added 10 more acres and a second entrance and exit.
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Purchased an inverter to go with the property. This 10 kw was around $600. They typically use inverters like this in other countries because it is 220 only and not 110. That doesn’t bother me because a transformer can step down power to what you want it to be. 220 is fine for me right now. Solar has been great at my house and this is just an extra for my other property. Im still putting it all together in my mind. I might want to build another barn on my property where my home is as well.
Unlike the inverters i used in this project https://growingfruit.org/t/solar-system-design-solar-panel-rack-bulk-steel-framing/44109 this inverter is transformerless and much lighter at around 30 pounds.
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nice pond. its a beautiful day like that here today but its only 57. feels warmer with the sun and lack of wind. you’re also alot greener than me. stuffs just waking up here. love this time of year minus the tons of yard work and maintence,.
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