Cousin Itt Acacia

Acacia cognata ‘ACCOG01’ Cousin Itt

A good specimen of Acacia ‘Cousin Itt’ at South Coast REC in September 2019. Photo: SK Reid.

Summary

Cousin Itt is a small shrub with fine leaves and a mounding, weeping habit. Over the trialing period, researchers observed non-uniform performance for this cultivar. Some individual plants appeared to enter a period of stasis at the beginning of the second year, while three plants in two different treatment groups died before the deficit treatment period started.  This may be the result of poorly rooted material from the beginning, but we suspect Cousin Itt’s incompatibility with reclaimed water for irrigation. By May, two individuals on moderate water had died and by July, three more plants on the low-water treatment died. The monthly overall appearance ranged from 2.3 to 3.5 out of 5 over the growing period (Table 6a) with the moderate irrigation scoring the highest (3.5) during the last three months. However, on each treatment there was one individual standout that established well and earned high overall appearance scores, both from researchers and open house participants. The disparity between open house ratings and researchers’ ratings is a result of open house participants evaluating only the best-looking individual of each cultivar for each treatment (Table 6b) while the researchers’ ratings are the mean of all individuals on the treatment. The high ratings from the open house participants show that Cousin Itt has the potential to be a really good-looking plant. The uneven performance across treatments makes it difficult to ascertain the cause of poorly performing plants, and several had a shower of dropped yellow leaves under them that was quite unattractive. They also tended to carry brown leaves on the lower canopy that were visible.  During the deficit period there was no significant difference between treatments for either measurements or aesthetic ratings, although uneven mortality makes this a more uncertain calculation. Based on a combination of quality ratings and survival rates, we recommend irrigating Cousin Itt on moderate water in WUCOLS zone 3, and not using reclaimed water.

In our experiences with Cousin Itt during this and a previous trial, we found this plant can be beautiful and highly impactful. During the open house, participants made note of the variation between the plant material in the field and their own challenges growing Cousin Itt. As a result, our recommendation is to carefully choose robust, well-rooted material when working with this Acacia.

Growth and Quality Data

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Acacia ‘Cousin Itt’ in June at South Coast REC showing the shower of dead leaves under each plant. Photo: SK Reid.