Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Cabbage Tree (Cornish Palm)

This morning I was out just after 6 a.m. potting and watering and took a photo of one of our cabbage trees in all its glory.


I then had a busy morning in town running all the usual errands followed by a lazy afternoon as I was quite exhausted.   In between my gardening and going to town I caught up with Molly from "Some other Mountain" - good to hear they are not affected by the flooding.

12 comments:

  1. Is that what we call a 'Cordyline'? Tenpin planted one in Brighton and it grew so tall that it blocked the light of the window of the flat above. They had to obtain 'planning permission' to cut it down!

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    1. Yes, that is it.
      Apparently it was named by Captain Cook after seeing Maori eat the heart like an artichoke.

      Another one we have is very tall.

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  2. They are lovely trees, I love them. But I believe some people are violently allergic to the flowers!

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  3. Your Cabbage tree looks like a huge version of my potted Yucca plants.

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    1. The leaves look quite like the yucca. I have a hedge of yucca just below that.

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  4. Are those smaller ones growing at the base. It is a lovely tree.

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  5. I had two of those, but as Cro mentions ours blocked our light from the upstairs windows. When they blossom it smells very sweet and they used to be covered in bees. In the end we cut them down, they look right in NZ but they did not look correct in a cotswold garden.

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  6. How lovely is the cabbage tree - ti kouka, Cornish palm, Torquay palm, Cordyline australis - in flower. The Maori people had large plantations of them, grown particularly for the inner trunk, which they baked in big scale ovens and used for travelling food. The result sounds like cake! The ancient way markers that begin the route from Christchurch to the West Coast survived the earthquakes and are huge multi trunked trees that can be seen at points leading west out of the city and onwards. What a joy they must have been to break one's journey under at this time of year - as long as you didn't get hayfever!

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  7. That is really interesting. They are lovely trees. I have several in pots in an uninteresting concreted area.

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