Cultivating mini coconuts

Always willing to meet any garden challenge, I have briefly had an exquisite moonflower (killed by the cold), peonies (killed by the heat), and many unusual and fascinating plants in-between. With a lifestyle block you feel obliged to give things a go. Though, even for me, the moonflower - Ipomoea alba, was not a very sensible choice. My husband dug the appropriate hole in a protected spot close to the farmhouse on our north-west Auckland block, so it could be enjoyed to the full. He lowered in a disused round concrete water trough, as the plant enjoys being in a tub and I thought this might also keep the roots warmer. However, with a tolerance limited to a low of 10degrees C, it was not with us long. But before it went, for a few short weeks, the flowers that were so tightly closed during the day, opened in the night releasing the most glorious fragrance.

My experience with pineapples, or a pineapple, was much more successful and certainly a highlight, as far as the exotic is concerned. I grew the plant from the dried-off crown of a fruit we had eaten, and produced a delicious fresh fruit. It had to live inside and did take several months to mature, but the taste was superb. Still, the success of producing a single fruit does not make a girl want to try for a commercial crop!

However, if you are looking to include interesting or exotic tropical and sub-tropical crops on your lifestyle block, Dick and Annemarie Endt are local horticulturalists who can help. Dutch immigrants, with forty years experience on New Zealand soil, they specialize in subtropical plants at their extensive Landsendt garden and nursery at Oratia, west of Auckland, together with daughter Carolyn and son Gerald.

I wandered through twenty acres of plantings that embrace edible delights as well as shelter and specimen options. All have been tested to ensure they do well in appropriate New Zealand conditions. Fruiting varieties include wild pineapples - ananas bracteatus that successfully set fruit, bananas - musa sapientum that produce big full bunches of sweet fruit, mountain pawpaw - carica pubescens, self fertilefigs - ficuswith red flesh, red and yellow guava, red banana passionfruit - passiflora antioquiensis, juicy pepino - solanum muricatumand huge seedless babaco - carica pentagona.

The garden’s wide range of palms also blend with taros, glorious bromeliads (some with long vibrant flower spikes) plus cycads, flowering bananas, aroids, succulents (like aloes, furcreas and agaves), heliconias, gingers, taros, cannas, philolendrons monstera – fruit salad plant, strelitzias - Bird of Paradise and lots of other delights. There’s even a charming historic homestead built in 1864.

They call themselves the ‘Valley of the Palms’, with palms of both the pinnate-feather type leaf and generally hardier palmate-hand type leaf varieties. Although they do have the Jelly Palm - Butia capitata, a wind tolerant pinnate variety, that will grow as far down as Christchurch.

But it’s a ‘gourmet’ coconut palm that they have successfully introduced that really deserves special mention. It’s the mountain coconut palm - Parajubaea cocoides that produces mini-fruit similar to walnuts in size and shape (about 3 cms across), but tasting of sweet young coconut flesh. They almost fall into the category of cold-hardy and originated in the temperate highlands of the South American Andes. Dick Endt says, “It is as genetically close to the tropical coconut of the Pacific as is possible and whatsmore has adapted to the Northern New Zealand climate”.

The attractive palms have flourished since being introduced at Landsendt two decades ago. They will grow to 12 metres in height and I saw beautiful specimens of five metres, with graceful arching glossy-leaved fronds and almost totally smooth trunks.

They produce copious amounts of mini-coconuts, with more than a hundred on each bunch. The bunches keep on forming from the top as the bottom ones are ripening, a habit Dick said was a continuous thing once the palm starts fruiting.

As far as food value is concerned, the little coconuts to date have been used by people living in South America and I have read that in Quito, Ecuador, you’ve got to be quick to find any lying about, as the local children collect and eat any that fall.

Dick described the crop to me. “It’s got all the characteristics of a coconut. The outer shell is very hard like a macadamia. It’s got three eyes like a coconut and the fibrous husk of the coconut, but the inside meat is very delicate - very moist and juicy not dry like a standard coconut.”

I learnt that the only fibre round the bark is at the base, to hold the new leaves in place. As the palm grows up and it sheds its leaves, the fibre falls off as well and leaves a clean trunk. The fibre is used by native South Americans for making all sorts of utensils, as well as mattresses and saddles for horses and donkeys.

Although it takes about twelve years to fruit, once it starts it produces an abundance of nut or coquito clusters. Each bunch takes three to four months to ripen and the process isn’t limited by seasons, it just continues indefinitely with bunches continuing to form and ripen, one after the other.

Dick said. “ It is a very, very good plant, it hasn’t got spines or anything negative like that. We have sold quite a few already to people like City Council horticulturalists, who have chosen them instead of using things like Phoenix palms”. He said this is because they are very open unlike Phoenix Palms and also because they are very graceful. They also notch up another plus when you consider the bad press the Phoenix have attracted, because of nasty infections springing from pricks from the fallen fronds.

And there’s more. It looks like a native NZ coconut grew here millions of years ago. Perfectly formed fossilized seeds were recently found at Coopers Beach in Northland that look just like those belonging to today’s Mountain coconut palm.

So while one wouldn’t tackle, a traditional coconut palm - cocos nucifera – it might struggle to a miserable height in a warm light indoors situation, but fruiting would be something else, this little gourmet treasure could well be worth a try. The relevant information sheet advises planting in a well-drained site protected from strong winds where there is full sun, putting mulch around the roots and giving a fertilizer dressing twice a year. Research shows that propagation is difficult, so access to three year potted palms at the nursery sounds like the answer.

As my visit was coming to an end and we turned the path, towards the homestead, I saw one of the most unusual fruiting sights. It was a medium sized fruit tree, with a trunk very like a guava, except the trunk was covered with round fruit between the size of a large grape and a small plum. The ripe ones were deep purple, going through hues of ripeness to acid green. The fruit tasted delicious, the flavour of blended grape/guava/plum, with no seeds and a very smooth texture. It’s called a Jaboticaba - Myrciaria cauliflora, is native to Brazil and belongs to the myrtle family.

This one however, is definitely not a commercial proposition, as it takes about 40 years to fruit!

©2004 Linda Donald
All rights reserved
Appeared in NZ Lifestyle Farmer
Words 1231

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