Growing Mulungu

 Erythrina verna (Mulungu) is a comparatively easy plant to grow and a pleasure to grow, but it needs plenty of room for the roots and regular fertilizer. In the summer it seems to grow quite fast, but it also likes to be watered regularly.

The Mulungu tree here should be kept small, or in the best case grown into a bonsai style plant - that's why it has been left in a relatively small pot until now. Whether this will succeed is doubtful, because Mulungu has very large leaves.

06.03.2019

The Mulungu seeds were lightly sanded with sandpaper on the opposite side of the "navel" until the lighter layer was visible. The shell of the seeds is very thick, so the pre-swelling should be facilitated.

Subsequently, the seeds were put into a cup with water for pre-swelling for about 24h. After a few hours, you can already see that the seeds swell well.

09.03.2019

After pre-swelling, the seeds were placed between 2 layers of damp kitchen paper. Already after 3 days, some can be seen that the seeds germinate.

The germinated seeds were placed in a mixture of 1 part Fibotherm, 1 part potting soil and 1 part cocohum, lightly covered with some substrate and watered a little.

20.03.2019

Mulungu seedling in fibotherm/potting soil/cocoum mixture.

18.05.2019

Mulungu shows a very bright leaf coloration, which indicates a lack of nutrients. Therefore, the plants are potted in normal potting soil and fertilized regularly. However, the roots look quite healthy in the fibotherm/potting soil/cocohum mixture.

Mulungu repotted in ordinary potting soil, still with severe deficiency symptoms.

13.06.2019

Growth progress with greener leaves.

18.07.2019

But always some nutrient deficiency.

27.07.2019

Mulungu is topped to make it branch out more and a first root pruning is done and repotted.

Before:

After:

30.01.2020

In the meantime, the plants were severely neglected, and Mulungu not watered for about 3 months, resulting in leaf shedding. However, the shoot tips are still reasonably green. Mulungu plant was and still is simply standing by the window.

12.02.2020

After about 2 weeks after restarted watering and careful fertilizing, new growth appears.

15.03.2020

Mulungu seems to recover slowly. It is again regularly fertilized with 3ml Plagron Alga Grow on 1 liter of water at each watering and about every 3-4 weeks are given about 3ml Neudorff iron fertilizer on 1 liter of water.

28.03.2020

Again branches were cut so that the plant branches out more and does not shoot up so much. In the future will try to keep the plant small and grow it as a kind of bonsai on the windowsill.