New plants

[davefrombc]

I went to a couple of nurseries today and finally found some camellia sinensis (tea trees)
I got two different cultivars of it. Now to get them growing well so I can pluck some leaves to brew my own tea.
My coffee trees have more berries ready to harvest ..One or two more lots and I should have enough to roast and brew a pot of home grown coffee.
I managed to get a small cacao tree from another hobbyist.. I doubt it will ever produce any pods, but it does have some nice leaves and adds another something different to my solarium.

[Eeyore]

Interesting plants Dave. I'd love to see photos of them.

[Jeannie]

This is a most inventive way to avoid paying the high costs of resturant brews. Imagine paying $1.79 for a coffee.....it used to be given away with the meal.
Water, with a slice of lemon, does me very well thank you.

Now if one wishes to pursue other ways to enjoy a drink, monarda, besides being a very nice colorful plant, makes a light minty tea as do many other of our common perennials.
Into our salads goes many of the leaves as well.

But counting on harvesting a coffee tree for a drink or two.....well, gosh, if you cant get one that has flavours like the coffee houses, what's the point.

I think the sun is over the yardarm.

[davefrombc]

I took some pix of my coffee berries , Cacao tree and tea bushes today.
I'll try uploading them again .. So far 3 attempts have failed . Looks like 4th try lucky .

[Eeyore]

How long have you had these and is there anything special you need to do to get them to bloom and grow berries?

[Lulu]

They are actually very nice looking plants!

[davefrombc]

The coffee bushes are several years old..I got them originally as small seedlings crowded in a 3" pot in the supermarket plant section . I repotted them and grew them on the windowsill until they got bigger , repotted as they grew and now in 12" pots in the solarium; and close to 8 ft. tall. They prefer very bright light, but direct sun does scorch them some.
I have two coffee bushes in 6" pots in the windowsill that are about 4 ft. tall also .. The pots are pretty much solid roots now, so they use a lot of water and a bit of houseplant fertilizer. It stunts them down , but they still produce some berries and are about 4 ft. tall. The flowers are tiny and have nearly no scent that I can detect. The berries have a gelatinous pulp that is very bland , and slightly sweet, with 2 beans,sometimes only one,
inside.
The coffee trees do best at room temperature but survive up to C heat in summer and C chill in winter in my solarium. The tea bushes and Cacao are new, and since getting them both have added some new growth, with the tea bushes budding and flowering.
I'll see how the cacao does in the chill this winter. The tea will have no problem . It is a Russian strain that can take some below freezing temperatures, so the C minimum in the solarium won't hurt it.
The tea flowers are rather plain. They have white petals and a yellow "puff" centre; nothing like their ornamental flowered camellia relatives. If you look closely at the second picture of the tea, you'll 2 blossoms above the name tag at about the 1 o'clock position.

[Eeyore]

Nice. I'll need to repot my coffee tree. It's only about 6 inches tall now. I did see the blooms on the tea bush and the lovely pink ones on the cacao bush.

[davefrombc]

The pink flowers are actually on a geranium behind the tea. The cacao is the large leafed plant. it is unlikely it will ever produce any flower , but if it does it will be a few years from now . Behind the tea you see in the picture with the geranium flower in the background is a fig tree trunk and to the right behind it is a banana.
I enjoy growing plants a little out of the ordinary ; and it they produce something edible , so much the better . LOL. I grew a tiny pineapple on a very stunted plant before . The fruit was just large enough to give me a small bowl of the sweetest pineapple I ever ate . I replanted the top and will grow it out in much larger pots to see if I can produce a bigger second pineapple from it .

[Eeyore]

LOL! Thought it would be unusual for a cacao to produce pink flowers! I actually expected they would be white.
Nice pineapple! I've always wanted to try one.