Buttonwood
I have both native buttonwood trees in my yard: the Green Buttonwood is shown first. I planted three of these in late 2020 about fifteen feet from the shoreline of the Indian River Lagoon. They have grown about a foot or more this year.
Conocarpus erectus
At the time of planting, I put some mycorrhizae into the planting hole, and have also periodically used a foliar spray of compost tea and liquid seaweed. (I often obtain compost tea from Hi-Tech Gardening in West Melbourne. They have "Free Tea Tusedays" where you can bring in two empty one gallon containers and leave with them full of fresh compost tea.) The trees seem healthy, but the silver ones just aren't growing as fast as the green ones.
The green ones were acquired from Native Butterfly Flowers and planted in December 2020. I got the Silver ones from Rockledge Gardens and planted them in January 2021.
Buttonwoods are native salt-tolerant trees. The silver variety is more showy, and is sometimes used as a hedge plant. (I was told that the silver ones are more susceptible to black sooty mold when they are planted away from the coastline. Presumably, the coastline setting offers more wind and therefore creates a harsher environment for the mold to flourish. Mine are planted very close to the lagoon, where we often have significant wind; the silver ones I planted don't seem to have much of this sooty mold issue.)
These are sometimes referred to as buttonwood mangroves, as they are often found growing in amongst other mangroves. The buttonwood is a host plant for the Martial Scrub Hairstreak butterfly.
The green and silver buttonwood are in the Combretaceae family, which also includes the white mangrove. Interestingly, the black mangrove and red mangrove are not in this same family but in two separate families.
I planted all of the buttonwoods on the east side of my property in the hopes of creating a bit of a wind screen for the rest of my yard. This will certainly take some time.
These photos were taken in March 2022.
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