OK my Ginko is about 4 foot high now, can I make tea from it's leaves. I knew what to do once but forgot. If you remember let me know. Tren

-- Anonymous, August 01, 2001

Answers

Wish I knew. I've been waiting for mine to get big. It's up to about ten feet now, and only three years old! I love it. But I don't know how many of it's leaves to nibble on. I don't want to get TOO smart!

JOJ

-- Anonymous, August 01, 2001

Your too funny JOJ! grinTren

-- Anonymous, August 01, 2001

I think that you want to use fresh leaves that have just started to turn yellow in the fall. But since I don't have any ginko trees I can't remember if this is correct or not. :) I'll check my books when I get home tonight.

-- Anonymous, August 01, 2001

Okay Tren, where can I get a Ginko tree or plant? After a day like I had today I could probably chow down on a whole tree to "smarten" myself up!! Guess it goes along with owning your own business...the customer is always right :-)!!? Really though, where do I get one?? Thanx!

-- Anonymous, August 01, 2001

I believe that you can get one mailorder from Jungs, but they tend to be expensive. I've seen 4-5 foot ones selling at nurseries around here for around $100. I think it's because they grow so slowly. The ones Jungs sells are all males, propagated clones.

I had always heard about the 'foul' smell of the fruit of female Gingko trees, but I didn't know what they were talking about until I was in Georgetown one time walking down the streets and there was the most gosh-awful SMELL...like nine thousand dogs had used it to poop on. It wasn't until later in the car with our shoes smelling the same way that I connected the odd little gumball sized things on the sidewalks with the lovely huge gingko trees I'd seen lining the streets. I can understand not wanting to take down what had to be at least 70 year old trees, but we left our shoes sitting out on the back porch that day.

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2001

I bought mine locally about three years ago; don't remember where. It has not been a slow grower. In fact, it has grown in that time from about 18" to over ten feet tall!

I love the way it looks (or is it because I, too, need to eat entire trees to get smarter. I forget :) so much that I just bought two more, each about 24" tall, in one gallon pots. They only cost $1.95 each at a local nursery. I ASSUME they are males, but I don't see any gonads on them. Regardless, I understand that it takes a long time (20 years?) for the females to bear fruit. If that happens, I'll deal with it.

There is a big Ginkgo in a park in Ashland, Oregon which drops fruit. They are kind of pretty, yellowish orange. I cleaned a bunch of them to extract the seeds to plant, and boy did my hands stink afterwards. Sort of like limburger chees. Or a randy billy goat!

These trees are supposed to be one of the most ancient trees still growing on earth. Even though they have large, gorgeous leaves (the biloba part of the name describes the leaves) which look like giant maidenhair fern leaves, they are actually said to be more closely related to conifers than broad leaf trees.

If someone can't find them locally, I can get you the name and address of the nursery, and I assume they would be willing to ship you some. They had a few thousand of them when I bought my two a month or so ago. They also had lots of othe cool trees at similar prices (I bought a bunch of Purple Smokes, and some Tulip Trees for $1,95 apiece, too, for instance.

The all these trees are already puttiing on significant growth; even the ones that are still in the pots.

JOJ

Never mind; instead of waiting, I'll just put their info here now:

Southern Oregon Botanicals 7673 Williams Hwy. Murphy, Oregon 97533 541 862 2136

(Their yellow page add says, "Delivery Available"

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2001

Thanks muchly, JOJ. At that price, I think I'll order a couple. I'd rather start off with small plants anyways!!

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2001