Cedars

In book 3 of The Ringing Cedars series on pages 206-207, Anastasia has the following to say about raising cedar seedlings for your kins domain.

"Let each resident of the big city obtain a little nut from a resinous cedar cone, place it in his mouth and hold it there in his saliva. Let him plant it in a little pot of earth in his home and water the earth every day. Before watering he should put his fingers in the water, and should be in good humour. And the main thing  - he should be wishing good for himself, his children and his decendants, and a concious awareness of God. This he should do every day.

When the seed sprouts, one may share with it one's innermost thoughts. On summer days and frost-free nights the little pot with the little sprout should be placed outdoors among other plants growing in the ground so that it can commune with the stars, the Sun and the Moon, so that it may know the rain and the breeze and the spirits of all the blades of grass all 'round, and then come back again to its friends, its parents. This may transpire many times now, while the desire is there and time allows.

The seedling will grow and develop through the ages - a cedar, after all, will live more that five hundred years, beget offspring and tell the young cedars about the soul of those that cultivated them. When the sprout has grown in the home to about thirty centimeters, it may be planted in the earth in early spring."

In Australia we cannot grow the Siberian Cedar (Pinus sibirica) as it's just all too hot and wrong for them... but I suspect that we may be able to grow it's close cousin Cedrus Libani, the Cedar of Lebanon.

I have just recieved a small packet of Cedrus Libani seeds and I'm about to attempt culivation. More information and photo's will be posted here if I am sucessful.