These boxes arrived yesterday. Guess what was inside them 😆

That big box is over 8ft tall 😯

Mike check your nearby garden centre's that are supplied by Monrovia
http://www.monrovia.com/plant-catalog/plants/2909/yuan-shan-hardy-schefflera.php

I have asked a few and they said it is technically a zone 7 plant ( im in 6B come on now really...) so they don't stock it. Im going to have to find a monrovia place that is up for special ordering whatever. I really want one of these

try Cistus Nursery for hardy Scheffleras that's where I got most of mine.

Andy....................what's inside............HUGE Scheffleras?????? Show us!! 😯

Hi Tim.... just done two fifteen hour shifts so a bit behind. Yes I have some more scheffleras and other rarities. Here goes.....
Circuligo Crassifolia.... looks like a small palm but isn't

A beautiful thin leaved Pittosporum illiciodes v illiciodes

Schefflera Kournasii.... a huge stem with leaves on top

from above

A brand new Schefflera introduction Schefflera aff Alpina....quite large leaves

Schefflera Alpinia

A hybrid Schefflera Taiwaniana x Gracilis

Finally Colquonia Coccinea v mollis

Not in leaf or flower yet but gorgeous when it is.
That's it and BTW did anyone notice seed? 😉

wow..........great specimen plants!!

Those Schefflera's are beauties. That S. alpina sure has large leaves.8)

How tall will that Schefflera Kournasii get? It's huge now!:shock:

OK which one of those plants is the hardiest.............cause I'll gonna try one too. 😀

I guess I had never been to the cistus nursery site...lot to look through. I'll be at this awhile and see what I can find. if there is a tawianana its commin home ASAP

wow..........great specimen plants!!

Those Schefflera's are beauties. That S. alpina sure has large leaves.8)

How tall will that Schefflera Kournasii get? It's huge now!:shock:

OK which one of those plants is the hardiest.............cause I'll gonna try one too. 😀

Tim.... the Schefflera with big leaves is related to Schefflera Alpina as it has deep purple emerging new leaves but like Trachycarpus has many variants. But the leaves are much bigger than standard Alpina
For the life of me I can never understand how they get that tall as the plants literally grow in wood bark with no soil.
Hardiest in my opinion is standard Schefflera Alpina which I will plant out in the spring.
Miketropic ... good luck with your search for Schefflera Taiwaniana. There are so many variants of this species as well.

I contact cistus and they said they are out of them but they might be on mail order lists in the future..I keep striking out with this one.

Andy........can we plant Scheffleras in 'regular' soil mix or is a wood chip 'soil' required? I used 'normal' soil mix.

Mike........Cistus usually offers Schefflera delvayi too...........get that one........it's a beauty too.

Tim.... Plant in ordinary soil. Crug use the chipped bark because it is an available commodity and much cheaper than soil mixes. The problem with using bark is that the surface can appear very dry but underneath but fish can survive in the water sink below 😆 I have lost many herbaceous plants through root rot because of this.
BTW I have emailed Cistus to see if they could ship to the UK.... no reply as yet
If your interested I could send you those Schefflera seeds I have on my Taiwaniana X Gracilis hybrid 😀

You reference dec 10 a lot (understandably 😀 ) How cold did it get where you are exactly?

Also very nice schefflera collection. My arbicolia took -5C a few nights and didnt bat an eyelash!

Hi Jesse... Dec 2010 caught a lot people out. A blocking high over Greenland allowed polar air to flood into the UK and Ireland. That month long freeze killed many mature inland Cordyline Australis including my own which had survived nearly twenty years. Many people also lost Dicksonia Antarticas. All my Scheffleras with the exception of Chapana were killed. Temperature wise my low was -12C. Benson a village 15miles from me hit -18C Worse hit areas were the Midlands and Northern England where temperatures hit -20C. However it was not absolute temperature but the continuous freeze lasting well over a week that did the damage. For me even in mild Winters I will still get -7/8C which isn't a problem if your above freezing the next day.I guess your temps are a lot worse, but your use to it... we were not.
Ive tried Schefflera Arboricola with no success. Crug have Schefflera Microphylla which is similar and that died in my greenhouse too.

on the HTUK board the winter of '10 is an unspoken nightmare lol. was it the low temps that killed everything or the prolonged cold that really did it?

Mike ..... I believe a mixture of both. Its pretty obvious on this forum that people use heat of some kind to keep their plants alive whereas over in the UK its mostly physical protection although some keen enthusiasts do use heat cables particularly on palms .But physical protection is only useful for short periods.

Hi Andy,

thanks for the soil tips.

Which Schefflera are you interested in from Cistus Nursery? Far Reaches Farm also has Schefflera delavayi if your interested in it.

http://www.farreachesfarm.com/Schefflera-delavayi-p/p3029.htm

Can you ID the Schefflera sp. from Far Reaches Farm? Here's a few photos of the seedling they sent me:

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Here is the description from Far Reaches Farm:

"It's difficult to talk eloquently let alone persuasively about a plant newly collected and how it will appear in the various seasons and how well it will perform in the garden. We don't know a lot about this November 2011 collection from a shrub at Lao Cai, Above Silver Waterfall, Vietnam at 2150 meters. We can say it won't grow in Des Moines, Iowa or Black Duck, Minnesota but it will likely be happy as a clam in Seattle. These are young but sturdy seedlings which will really need greenhouse overwintering this first winter. At this young stage, they bear resemblance to Schefflera alpina and S. chapansis but since they were collected by Aaron Floden, we're smart enough to know that if he doesn't know than we don't know. It's kind of like that Donald Rumsfeld thing where there are known knowns and known unknowns and if we know we don't know than we know more than those who don't know but know they do. Generally I found little palatable about him but I did find myself defending him over this quote as it made perfect sense to me. Somehow seeing it in print makes it seem less defensible and my veracity more questionable."