New bonsai Zanthozylum

[M. Taylor]

I have just bought a Zanthxylum, it's 2 years old, what is the best way to look after it?

[Gnome]

M. Taylor,

Sorry about the lack of response so far. This is a tree that I have never even seen a live example of and I suspect that most of our members have not either. We do get a thread from time to time and a lot of them come out of the UK, apparently they are more common there.

I have checked my books and none list this species, furthermore none of the "usual" websites seem to have anything either. I know there have been threads on this species in the past, perhaps if you use the search function you will gain some insight.

Norm

[thanrose]

Zanthoxylum clava-hercules grows wild here. I see it either all the time or infrequently depending on whether or not we count my front yard.

This of course is not bonsai, but some of what I've noted may help.

We started with a 7 foot tall specimen mangled by the plot clearing bushhogs, but it was growing in the shelter of a green ash. 27 yrs ago? Anyhow, it's been topped, lopped, nearly girdled, drowned in hurricane flooding, and in severe drought. Hmmm, plus I ripped some of it out with heavy leather gauntlets. This year, it's four widely separated stems that seem to be growing in a colony, One was topped by a storm, they are all under 3 ft tall, another had an intersting caterpillar and cocoon. The soil there is marl. A clay type basically.

Oh yeah, and I totally know and use the anesthetic effects. Just for kix. Maybe once every couple of years.

I liked it enough that I brought a ripped straight out of the ground specimen to plant in a place of honor in my new house's front yard, bird bath and cherub and bowling ball and all. Soil there was sand, sand, sand on top of more sand. But water table was pretty high. That one sent off offshoots through my cobbled walkway until I again had a colony. The main plant grew maybe 10 ft tall before flowering and fruiting, and my crazy ex snuck by and dug out some of the little ones, that I was perversely intending for him some day when we'd be talking again. I was at that house 12 years before eventually moving back here. Daresay the subsequent owner cursed me roundly with all the thorny cuts and scratches when he tried to remove them. I think he eventually used a torch on them. His front yard now is sand, dead 80 year old cedars, and peeling adirondack chairs. Everything else is gone.

When I'd see them on woods walks, it would be in damp areas, edges of woods kinda places.

Just last month, I saw one growing in a sand dune, tiny bit of shelter from the boardwalk to the jetty, but it was dense and lush and yellowish. Seriously, sand dunes and salt water are not always a good environment for growing well nourished specimens. Absolutely Zanthoxylum clava-hercules. Glands and thorns and anesthetic and all. Appeared to have multiple trunks: again with the colony thing just a little denser than my experience inland.

My leaves are getting ready to change color out front. Always pale yellow. I'd expect leaf fall in a few weeks, with the compound leaf stem to fall the month later. And me to step on a thorn barefoot maybe a month after that.

I do not know your species, nor the expectations for it, but wish you have at least half the entertainment mine has given me.

[LostHand]

Zanthoxylum clava-hercules grows wild here. I see it either all the time or infrequently depending on whether or not we count my front yard.

Lucky you are that it grows wild in Florida