MAKE A BED FOR AN OLD FLAME

THE Chilean flame tree is one of the most spectacular that can be grown in Irish gardens. It makes a truly fiery display of flowers in the late spring and early summer. A tree planted near a road way will literally stop the traffic, as people pull up to look at the tree.

The flame tree is almost evergreen, much depends on the winter. In a cold frosty winter, with drying winds from east or north, the leaves drop off, or only a few remain. It is native to the Andes foothills where, by all accounts, it is truly spectacular, but strangely the plant makes a bigger size in Irish gardens. In Chile it makes a bush, and some have bright yellow flowers, while it makes a small tree here, up to six metres or so.

The best ones grow in the southwest, where the mild climate gives them a long growing season and they enjoy the rich acid soil and moisture in the air. It is a common feature in Cork gardens where it lights up the scene for about 10 weeks.

Although it is easy to grow, this tree, correctly called Embothrium coccineum, needs neutral or acid soil, so it is not suitable in parts of the country where the soil is limey. People can get around the aversion to lime of small shrubs such as rhododendrons and camellias by altering the soil over the area where they are grown, but this plant makes a small tree and it would be much more difficult to change the soil over its root area, but not impossible.

The soil in a limey area can be made neutral or acidic by digging in lots of rotted organic material and spreading iron sulphate over the area at about 100 grams per square metre. The iron sulphate can be used in the following years, if the leaves of the embothrium turn yellow at the shoot tips. This tree is so spectacular as to be worth it.