It can't possibly be too little light as they've been in a 100% full sun position since they were seedlings. It might be too much light: the spring/summer this far north offers a lot more daylight than in the consistent photoperiod of their equatorial habitat.

Anyway I've been wanting to learn tree budding so I'll get my secateurs and give it a go.

Your tree will be fine If you don't have frost then just leave them be outside your house.
I had mine go from growing sideways to becoming a large tree(8 feet tall-potted).

Here's a pic of my tree a year ago. Taken 2-3 months in between.


Just keep rotating the pot if your tree tends to favor a side(where the sun is) so she will be "balanced".

Great thread! I plan on growing some mimosa at the start next spring. Im going to have to keep them inside during the winter as well but I dig the idea of starting them in spring. GL M8

nice plants guys.

Dont worry about them leaning over. They naturally do that. Our trees outdoors in ground that also receive full sun and typhoons still do it. but as in indoor plant, especially if you have carpet, you may consider putting some plastic sheet under it as their tiny leaves that are lower/inside the bush drop and make a fine mulch/leaf litter

they wont grow outdoors anywhere in BC during cold parts of winter though. You could grow them in a shed that stays above freezing and train stems out of window that is almost all sealed. then the roots lower stem could probably handle the winter, the outside stems would die back of course but start up again in spring.

Well they are still going..still growing..but, they are acting like deciduous trees..the bottom half of the trees leaves all began to yellow and then drop off like perfectly synced with the deciduous trees right outside the window..the tops of the trees that are getting light from the growlights though are still growing and still very green.

I was told on the ayahuasca forums that this is normal for mimosa..that they do loose leaves in the fall even in brazil..and that someone else that has been growing it indoors for a while has this happen as well in the winter and then in the spring it fills back out again..only my taller mimosa's are doing this also..I have a few smaller ones that are maybe a foot right now and it seems that they wont loose leaves yet at only that size..it seems that once they get to a certain height they will drop the lower half of the leaves if the level of direct sunlight decreases..

I know I dont have root rot or anything like that. I just hope that they do infact fill back out in the spring..I am most likely getting some more lights in a few months thoush so I can stimulate full on al winter long..right now I just have 2 very small grow lights in cheap home depot lamps.

Awesome thread, jamie. Thank you

I finally got my seeds, and will start germinating them soon. I was wondering about the light requirements of the early seedlings, so I can prepare a comfy place for them to thrive indoors. Right now I have two daylight fluorescents, 25W each, and one CFL 125W, all used previously for other small indoor growings. What would you use for the first stages? I plan on growing maybe five seeds for starters.

As equatorial flora they should be day-neutral, so 12hr light/12hr dark is probably the best setup.

Well, first germinating try has been an easy success. Two seeds, gently nicked, soaked for around a day and a half in the dark, in spring water, and placed as soon as they started to peek their tails in wet jiffy peat pots, inside of a small homemade greenhouse, under two daylight cold fluorescent lamps. These are the jurema babies, five days later.

..beautiful Vodsel..congratulations! and thanks everyone for this thread..

Ah memories...

Looking good, Vodsel. Keep them well lit and they'll be giants in no time. Keep an eye out for any fungus gnats going for their roots.

Updating with this nice one month old, growing indoors

Well, through the fall and winter my plants did shed about 2/3 of the leaves, then were sort of dormant for about 2 months. They still looked healthy though just acting like a wannabe deciduous tree. Now, for the last 5 or 6 weeks they have been in this active growth phase again as the days are getting longer and we have had warm temps. My mimosa trees have survived the BC winter indoors here and are now grwing fast with lots of new true side branches and green leaves. All the spots up the base of the plants that dropped the leaves in the fall are filling out with actual branches and the base of the trees is getting more and more woody looking almost bark like.

They are still small, 4 feet or so at the tallest as they have just been putting out crazy branch sections trying to fill in what they dropped in the fall I guess.

I can easily imagine these trees being taller than me by the end of this summer. We will see.

I will try to get some pics of the new growth they are putting out this week.

Here is some pics of my tallest mimosa now..interestingly this one is younger than the others..the ones I origionally posted lost a lot of leaf by spring and I had to chop them down real low..they put out some newer branches over the summer but this one here seems to have the best genetics..its like 10-11 months old I think and getting close to 4 feet..I think it's been growing like 2 inches a week latey.. I have it under 500 watts of light, plus it gets some natural lighting also. There is something about the genetics of this one though..my hope is to get this one all the way to the roof, and bend the branches with weights so that it bushes all over and get it into a real large pot..and then be able to take cuttings. Not sure about mimosa cuttings though..

I dont want to put this one outside in the greenhosue at al becasue I dont want to risk it..id rather keep this as an indoor tree and just give it whatever it needs, get it as big as I can inside and then start some other seedlings in the greenhouse this summer..and id like to start cuttings from this plant in my greenhouse..does anyone know if mimosa cuttings can root?

I'll tell you for sure in a few days... I'm trying to root two cuttings I took from one mimosa that was growing in a weird shape, completely bifurcated and not showing much progress, so I left the main stalk in the pot (with a few short green shoots coming out) and cut the two major branches.

I have used the plain advice for mimosa pudica. Taking the cutting, covering the base in a wet paper towel, removing the lower branches, applying a bit of rooting hormone with a brush and planting them in loose moist soil with perlite. They have been almost a week inside of a bag under fluorescents 18/6, and look perfect so far. I'll check them closely this weekend, but my guess is they won't be well rooted in a couple more weeks, cross my fingers.

Irie,
I've never had a cutting take!
But they are so easy from seed, why bother?
Respect,
Z

I'd love to see who is the progress going, I just planted a few seeds yesterday.