Larry’s Photo Of The Week: Norfolk Island Pine: A Houseplant’s Tropical Origins and Challenges

December 11, 2024
Larry Hurley
Christmas, House Plants
0 Comments

Norfolk Island Pine, Araucaria heterophylla, is sold as a houseplant during the Christmas season. I’ve tried to grow it several times with limited success. (The success being limited by premature death.) Detailed cultural information available here from the North Carolina Extension Service.

I probably tried to grow it in a home that was too warm, not humid enough, and didn’t have enough light. I likely tried to make up for it by overwatering. Throw in a population of spider mites, and it was bye-bye Norfolk Island Pine, hello, philodendron. I would rotate the plant in its window by 90 degrees weekly so that it wouldn’t grow one-sided, and even put a few Christmas ornaments on it, but I think two years was the best I ever got out of one. Then, the lower branches would fall off and it was compost time.

They are used worldwide as landscape plants in tropical areas though, and can get very large. Here is a photo taken in 2007 of two young ones at Emu Point, in the town of Albany. That’s Albany, Western Australia, not New York. An Australian photo is appropriate because Norfolk Island is an “external territory” (Wikipedia) of Australia. It’s a tiny island, only 13.36 square miles, located east of Australia and northwest of New Zealand. And this is their place of origin–they are endemic to this tiny island, found in the wild nowhere else in the world.

It would be fun to visit there and see them on their home turf, so to speak. According to Google Flights, Qantas* Airlines flies there nonstop twice a day from Sydney, about a three hour flight. Now I just have to get to Sydney….

*Probably you are saying, “Larry, you misspelled Qantas! Isn’t there always a “U” after “Q”? Not in this case. QANTAS is actually an acronym for Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services.

Larry Hurley

Larry Hurley worked at Behnke Nurseries from 1984 until the business was composted in 2019, primarily with the perennial department in growing, buying and sales.

Before landing at Behnke’s, he worked as a technician in a tissue culture lab, a houseplant “expert” at a florist shop, and inventory controller at a wholesale nursery in Dallas. With this and that, ten years passed.

When his wife Carolyn accepted a position at Georgetown University, Larry was hired at Behnke’s for the perennial growing department and garden center at Behnke’s Largo location.

In 2021, Larry and Carolyn moved back to Wisconsin to be closer to family and further from traffic. After 37 years in a shaded yard in Maryland, he is happy to have a sunny lot where he can grow all sorts of new perennials, if only he can keep the rabbits at bay. He also enjoys cooking, traveling, and the snowblower.