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Tree growing guide
Nagi is a broad-leaved evergreen conifer from East Asia with glossy, oval leaves and round, dark violet seeds. Its seed must never dry out: sow it fresh, keep it warm and moist, and allow up to three months for germination.
Nagi seed is recalcitrant. It is shed with about 35% moisture and loses viability quickly if it dries below about 17%; below about 13% almost none survive. Sow as soon as possible. If you must hold it, keep it in slightly moist material in a sealed bag at about 4 °C (39 °F); undried seed stored this way kept about 98% emergence for 6 months. Never freeze it: storage at -18 °C killed every seed within a week.
Not needed. The delay in germination comes from a small, underdeveloped embryo that must grow inside the seed, not from a hard coat.
Not needed. Seeds germinated well at warm temperatures without a cold treatment.
Not needed for fresh seed. Wipe off any soft outer flesh that remains, which can go mouldy in the pot.
Keep the pots at about 25 °C (77 °F) constant, or at a warm day / mild night cycle of 30/20 °C (86/68 °F). Both gave over 90% germination in a laboratory study.
Press each seed into the mix and cover it with about its own depth of compost; the seed is 10-15 mm (about 1/2 in) across.
A moist, free-draining mix such as loam-based compost with grit or sand. Use deep pots so the root can grow down undisturbed.
Keep the mix evenly moist for the whole germination period. Letting the pot dry out can kill the seed because it does not tolerate drying.
Keep pots in bright, indirect light; the laboratory germination tests were run in light. Avoid hot direct sun on the pots.
Slow and steady: the embryo grows by about 40% before the root appears. Fewer than a quarter of seeds germinate in the first 4 weeks, but more than 90% can be up by 12 weeks. Do not give up on pots early.
Move each seedling into a deeper pot once it has a pair of true leaves and a firm root, keeping the root ball intact.
Plant out a sturdy young tree into deep, fertile, loamy-sandy, well-drained soil. Young trees tolerate shade; older trees can take more light.
Keep the soil moist, mulch around the base and shelter young plants from hot, drying wind.
Nagi is native to Japan, China and Viet Nam, in humid forests with a mean annual temperature near 17 °C (63 °F) and about 2,000 mm of rain. It is hardy to roughly -7 to -12 °C (19-10 °F), USDA zone 8. In India it suits mild, humid hill climates better than the hot, dry plains.
It grows best on deep, fertile, loamy-sandy soils that hold moisture but drain well.
An evergreen tree 20-30 m tall in the wild, with glossy, oval, opposite leaves 4-6 cm long. It is grown as a specimen or shade tree and can be kept smaller as a pot plant.
The species is listed as endangered in Viet Nam, so buy seed from cultivated trees rather than wild collection.
Sow nagi seed fresh, warm and moist for a glossy-leaved evergreen tree.
Not for long. The seed dies if it dries out or freezes. Kept slightly moist at about 4 °C it can last several months, but sowing promptly gives the best results.
Usually 4 to 12 weeks at about 25 °C. The embryo has to grow inside the seed first, so slow starts are normal.
It is a close relative in the same family and is often sold as Podocarpus nagi, but its broad, oval leaves and round seeds without a fleshy stalk set it apart.
