Chinese Pistache: A Gawky Adolescent Grows Up

"You have got to be kidding."

A decade ago I was looking at a crooked Pistachia chinensis sapling, while the nursery owner praised its attributes. Although it was a gawky adolescent, he promised it would turn into a beautiful rounded shade tree with orange, red, and crimson fall colors. It was drought and heat tolerant and unbothered by disease or insects. It had extremely hard wood, and the deep roots would help it stand firm during storms.

"Nobody wants it," he said. "They don't know what they are missing." Now he was appealing to the rescuer side of me. The plant was doomed to die, withered in the back with the other rejects if I didn't buy it. How could I let that happen?

So I paid a few dollars for the Chinese pistache tree and brought it home. It looked like a tall weed, and my family was skeptical when I planted it in a place of honor down in the lower front lawn, near the entrance to our property.

For a few years I drove past it with an embarrassed look. I pruned it a little, trying to improve its shape. The tree grew over two feet a year and now, finally, is beginning to fulfill the promise made by the nursery owner. A recent photo shows the lustrous green color of my Chinese Pistache tree.Here is a closer look at the leaves. This photo, taken last October, shows the beautiful fall foliage.

My tree is a close relative of the pistachio tree that produces the edible nuts many of us love. The Chinese pistache tree produces fruit which is inedible to humans but beloved by birds. Every other spring, female trees produce inconspicuous greenish flowers, followed by reddish purple berries, most of which are infertile. If fertilized by the pollen of a male tree, the berries will become black. Another good thing is that Chinese pistache pollen is non allergic. My tree has never produced berries, so I am thinking it is male, though maybe it is still too young to produce fruit. Male trees are reported to have better mature form, and many of the Chinese pistache trees available in nurseries are male. So I think that is what I have. Eventually I will know for certain. 

A member of the sumac family, Chinese pistache trees are adaptable to a variety of soils and will grow in hardiness zones 6-9. They can grow up to forty feet tall and wide, and the oval to rounded crown provides medium to filtered shade. It is a very long lived tree. The average Chinese pistache will live over fifty years, but some specimens have lived for hundreds of years.

The Chinese pistache is on a lot of 'Recommended' lists for good reason, but be aware: in some parts of the country, particularly Texas, it is considered invasive. Fortunately, that is not a problem for me, and I am happy to see my gawky adolescent grow up!

A Little Voodoo Plant Magic

Last year I told the tale of a peculiar new plant in my post Under the Spell of the Voodoo Plant. If you are unfamiliar with Amorphophallus konjac, you may want to read that post first. This post is to provide an update on what has been happening with the plant since then.

The voodoo lily settled into the new talavera pot I provided and grew well through last summer. Eventually, as fall progressed toward winter, the leaves turned yellow and died, just as I expected. I had to decide whether to leave the bulbs buried in the dirt or whether to dig them up. I didn't want to leave the talavera pot out through the frosts, and I probably could have left the bulbs in the pot when I brought it inside. 

But I decided to dig the bulbs because I wanted to see what they looked like. I was shocked. I had seen photos of mature bulbs, giant globes nearly a foot across. I knew my plant was young, but I had no idea how tiny the bulbs would be. One was little larger than an almond, the other one even smaller.

I brushed loose dirt off the bulbs and placed them in a small paper sack, labeled  so I wouldn't forget them. I put the sack on a shelf in my pantry and left them there through the winter. As spring approached I occasionally took a peek at them. They looked dead. I had read that voodoo bulbs don't need soil or even water to flower and will begin growth in spring, even if stored inside. Since my bulbs are so small, I don't expect them to flower for several years yet, but I was looking for some signs of life before planting them again.

Finally, in April I found a small bump on the largest one. Life! Soon the smaller one had signs of growth, too. I replanted them in the talavera pot and put them in a shady spot in the front garden. 

Nothing happened. By late May I was worried my voodoo lily was dead, after all. Then I remembered that this plant flowers first, then, after the efflorescence dies, sends up a stalk with leaves on top. Because mine wasn't flowering yet, I guessed it was just waiting for the appropriate time to start growing. 

At last in June I saw shoots poking through the earth. I kept them watered well and applied a tomato fertilizer every other week. Here are the results:Each stalk is topped with one large, divided leaf. They remind me of tomato plants.Here's another view. Note the snakeskin pattern to the stalks.

Wait! Take a closer look at that last photo. There is now a third shoot! I read that each bulb produces only one stalk. Could it be one of my tiny bulbs is producing two stalks, or that somehow I now have three bulbs?  I think my plant has performed a little voodoo magic!

And even more importantly, to me and my neighbors and possibly the police, does this mean I will have THREE flowers when they bloom? How lucky could I be? 

You may also enjoy A Southern Garden Party, which is where it all began.