For most of the year, we also have an ongoing supply of young seedling trees for sale, which are surplus to requirements. Seedling-grown trees are quite a different shape to trees originally grown from a cutting or a branch. They are more symmetrical as a rule, the trunk will be much thicker, and the tree itself will grow much faster. The root system is a 'proper' root system, rather than an adventigious one, induced to grow to perpetuate itself. These seedling trees are what you will get as a natural surplus to requirements, when creating brand new cultivars. They can be used as feature trees in gardens, either retaining the original blooms or for grafting your favourite varieties on to - making a unique rainbow tree!

About 100 new young seedlings come out of the shadehouse each spring, to be planted directly into the ground in their own paddock, in rotation. It takes about two years to see the first blooms, in the right conditions. Then we are supposed to grow on for another three seasons while we wait for blooms to stabilise. After this time, they are sold on very cheaply if no longer wanted. The seedling trees offered for sale will be around five years old, and around two metres tall.

We try to sell on these seedling trees, usually lemon-cetred whites, pinks, and pastel tri-colours, at around two metres, because they can still be transported very cheaply at this height. They are packed in recycled refridgerator boxes, cling-wrapped onto pallets, and transported to Perth, actually delivered to your door - so a door-to-door service is offered, for only $100 per tree!

The reason for such fast growth, and production of such sturdy seedling trees, is simple. Carnarvon has no real winters as such, and many seedlings actually flower during their second winter, flowering again without going into dormancy at all, the following summer. It's a perfect situation for a hybridizer, because you see the results of your work, so much faster than would normally be the case. The tree on the right started with eight branches growing from the orginal tip.

Costs obviously vary from tree to tree, depending on age, number of branches, and colour, but start from as little as $250, and the number of colours that can be grafted onto a seedling tree is limited only by your imagination. Most seedling trees start life with three or four branches, but depending upon the gene pool being worked with - tall growers, shorter compact growers etc - they can begin life with up to twelve branches from the tip of the seedling, giving a gloriously unique 'wineglass' shape, with a breath-taking canopy of blooms, once the tree matures. See image on the right. This was a seedling of Dwarf Watermelon damaged at the tip when it was still in the shadehouse. From the damaged tip two branches with their own new sets of four symmetrical (mirror-image) branches started to grow, making a lovely compact little fan-shaped shrub. It has a glorious perfume, and it will be interesting to see what sort of shape it eventually settles into.