Fixing A Broken Stem Of A Rain Tree Seedling

Tree Species : Rain Tree (Albizia Saman / Monkey Pod Tree / Vilayati Siris)
Germinated On : May 15, 2016
Repaired On : Oct 4, 2016

I accidentally broke the stem of my 5 month old rain tree seedling & cursed myself for my carelessness on the balcony. To repair it, I just straightened the stem, made a wire clip, taped it and kept the trunk watered for a few days and is fine now, 10 days later. I felt like a doctor, treating a patient with leg fracture :-)

The birth of this rain tree from seed is covered  in this beautiful story, created using Steller app :

Birth Of A Rain Tree
 (best watched on mobile)

The seed was scarified by nipping its tip with a nail cutter. That was enough for the water to penetrate the waterproof outer coating of the seed and within 12 hrs, it had swollen up and cracked at the end where it sprouts. It was then planted into sand in a tiny medicine bottle and germinated the next day.

The tiny bottle can be seen in this video too :

Watch On YouTube

After repeated pruning of the roots escaping from the multiple holes at the base of the medicine bottle, I finally moved it to a Hybrid-Ponic setup. The constant pruning ensures a dense root system inside the pot.

So, now the main roots flow out from sand and dip into a bottle of water kept below it. The newspaper roll prevents algae growth in the water bottle. Roots in both sand & water are fed diluted liquid NPK fertilizer. 

Within a few days of this setup, roots started dipping into the water and new growth started again on the top, which was stunted for sometime. The water roots are sacrificial & and the medicine bottle is the main container. The seedling was already in this hybrid-ponic setup when the stem broke.