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Not many of us have ever seen a BRW tree living. Here is a pic of one in my friend's yard.

The other pics are of my favorite Brazilian store for purchasing cedar neck blanks and a few cedar billets.
The warehouse is full of mahogany and it can't be sold due to cites.

That is very cool indeed. could you get a closeup of the leaf structure?

Sort of makes you sick to see all that mahogany unavailable.  Great pictures.  Thanks for the post.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I have written to a fellow in Hawaii who works for a company growing valuable trees like BRW and Koa and other species. I have seen pictures of acres of different trees, so apparently BRW can be grown there. No answer yet but hope springs...

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

I havent tried planting a rosewood tree, but I did order some mahogany seeds and planted them in a greenhouse. Whether or not they come up is yet to be seen, but I have tried.

I would think that those living in south Florida could most likely plant and grow most any kind of tree that grows in S. America.  The problem is that I doubt I will live long enough to be able to actually use the wood if they do grow.

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Reguards,

Ken H

Good question, I have no idea if you could import seedlings to plant here. I am sure someone somewhere would have something to say about it.

John,

I could have gotten a closeup last week when I was there but I am Stateside again, sorry.

I have a Mahogany tree in my back yard down in Key West. The trunk is about 12" in diameter.

Gary

Have you been tapping on it to see if it is maturing properly? 

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Robbie,

I'm curious as to how old that small tree is, and how much they grow per year. I've heard that they are relatively fast-growing, but I've heard the opposite too. Any clue?

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

It has a good ring to it but everytime I tap it I end up cleaning up leaves...
The tree drops leaves all the time...
Gary

I planted a Dalbergia Sissoo in my front yard about 15 years ago. This is one of the India Rosewood varieties and they make a nice, fast-growing open canopy shade tree. (Important in Florida, where we sometimes get big winds.)

We paid a local garden center to find us the biggest specimen available. They found one about 12-feet tall with a three-inch diameter trunk. Charged us $164 to deliver and plant the thing. It's now about 35 to 40-feet tall and still growing. The trunk is about 18 inches in diameter. Nice tree.

One bad habit though, is that in drought times it thinks it's dying and starts sending up shoots from the roots — in the neighbor's yard! We've started six other trees from the shoots. We planted a couple of them and gave the others away.

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D..

Don,
I think the tree is about 4 years old. From what I have heard it would reach maturity after about 150 years.

So if I plant some now, I can cut them and use them sometime before I'm ready to retire. Cool!

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

[QUOTE=Hodges_Guitars]I would think that those living in south Florida
could most likely plant and grow most any kind of tree that grows in S.
America.[/QUOTE]



Hawaii is a better bet.  The soil in SoFla is all lime, you have to bring in real dirt by the truckload.

So far no reply from this first, most interesting, outfit.

http://www.uneco.org/hawaiianmahogany.html

For more on the subject:

http://hawaii-forest.org/training/treeestab.htm

http://www.state.hi.us/dlnr/dofaw/hfsp/fs_byisland/kauai.htm

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck