December 2006
Contents
1. Gift Vouchers - Makes a great Christmas gift.
2. Videos - We have made some more videos for you
3. Living Christmas Trees - Wollemi Pine, Hoop Pine and lilly pillys are great Christmas trees.
4. Malabar Chestnuts - Can be eaten raw or roasted to taste like cashews or chestnuts.
5. Grafted Flame Tree - Australia's stunning rainforest tree.
6. Most Popular Trees - Find out what is the most popular fruit trees in your local area.
Living Christmas Trees
Christmas is a wonderful time for giving; there is no better gift than planting a beautiful tree for future generations to enjoy. There are lots of native trees that can be decorated for Christmas, lilly pillys will look gorgeous dressed in tinsel and will also celebrate the rainforest that we all love, after the festivities are over they can then be planted in your garden, rainforest patch or grown in a container where you can enjoy them. I am very excited about my Christmas tree this year as it is of course the first year that the Wollemi pine has been available and I have mine in a large ornamental pot ready to make my place festive and joyful. The Wollemi is a very special and unusual ancient tree that not only makes a distinctive and special Christmas tree but it is also an ideal 
present for someone who is a nature lover and passionate about our native flora. They are a stunning plant and will happily grow in a pot where they can be enjoyed as an indoor plant or on a patio.
There are other native pines that will also make lovely Christmas trees like the Hoop pine an excellent choice for the Kyogle district as they are native to this area where their tall silhouettes are commonly seen rising above all the other trees. The Bunya pine is another interesting native Araucaria originating from the age of the dinosaurs. It is a very large tree and should only be planted in spacious gardens and parks. Keep them well away from buildings and public thoroughfares as the falling nuts can do considerable damage to anything that they happen to fall on, cones can easily weigh 25 kg or more. The nuts are an excellent bush food and are produced in abundance every third year. The other notable native that will look great decorated indoors is the plum pine, podocarpus elatus; it has small leaves and an open form with horizontal branches. The new growth is particularly attractive as the tree becomes covered with an orangey 
pinkish flush on its tips. This is another bush food, it does not have a true fruit as such but it produces swollen stalks that taste like plums with a hint of pine to them. They make superb jam and are tasty eaten straight from the tree. Trees are either male or female and you will need one of each in order for them to cross pollinate and set fruit so it is a good idea to plant a group of three to increase the chances of having both a male and female plant.
The other edible tree we have that will look great decorated as a Christmas tree is the pine nut tree, this is a true pine so it will fit in with a more traditional Christmas look. They are attractive tree that have a bluish tinge to their needles and have a beautiful symmetrical form, they grow well in frosty regions and they are very hardy once established.
Gift Vouchers
Many people have already ordered fruit trees to be mail ordered to their family and friends for Christmas but if you are unsure which fruit trees will make the best gift then a Daleys nursery gift voucher may be your answer this Christmas. You can include your very own personal message and vouchers can be made out for any value $50 and above. We then print and mail the voucher for you. To find out what it will look like simply fill out this form.
We mail order plants all across NSW, Queensland, Victoria, ACT and South Australia so your recipient can place their order online, by phone or fax and we can mail order the plants to their doorstep. We currently have no minimum order so if your friends or family are talking about getting some fruit trees but are not close enough to one of our recommended retailers then maybe a gift voucher is the perfect gift this Christmas.
Malabar Chestnut - Pachira insignis
The malabar chestnut is native to the wet lowland rainforests of the Amazon basin in South America where it can grow to 25m. It is seldom seen this large in cultivation where it grows to about 10m. Trees are fast growing if they are provided with adequate moisture. This is a stunning tree with a deliciously fat swollen trunk that is a trait of the Bombaceae family. The delicious and versatile nuts are produced in the summer months, they can be eaten either raw or roasted. When roasted or fried in oil they taste like chestnuts or cashews, raw they taste like peanuts and keep for months in a cool, dry place. They can also be ground and used as a flour substitute when baking bread. The young leaves and flowers are cooked and delicious eaten as a vegetable. The nuts can also be sprouted and then used in stir fries where they are scrumptious. More than anything the tree is gorgeous and makes a handsome and interesting landscaping feature tree.
Grafted Flame Tree - Brachychiton acerifolius
The Australian flame tree is our most widely planted and familiar rainforest tree. In its native range it grows from the Illawarra region north to the Cape York peninsula but it will happily grow far outside it native boundaries to the south and in inland areas. Seedling tree can take a long time to flower, even up to 20 years and then their flowering habits can be sporadic, to ensure that your flame tree is going to produce dramatic shows of the spectacular red flowers a grafted plant is an excellent choice. Grafted plants are able to flower immediately as they are grown from a piece of a mature tree, they also have the mature leaf form and grow quickly into a densely foliaged specimen tree.
Fruit Tree Videos
We have been having fun preparing a few videos for you. You can view the latest additions by visiting our Fruit Tree Blog.
Australia's Most Popular Fruit Trees
You can now find out what the most popular fruit trees for your local area are. Simply click your state and enter your postcode. Click below to begin:
Australia Plants - Most Popular
