Don't prune them at all and keep them in a warm, bright location. If they are a nice, bushy 2 feet tall, you should have flowers next summer. I bring my younger, smaller caesalpinia pulcherrima inside my greenhouse, too.

Where are you and what color(s) do you have?

Here's a photo of some of mine. They are large enough now to keep outside here in southern Ca. In the lower photo, the deeper green plant in the middle of the caesalpinia plants is not another variety. Its a small Delonix regia tree.

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Hello Cagary,that is a truly amazing sight. Thank you for your advice. I do hope mine will look like yours perhaps next year.I am in the U.K. and our winters drop below freezing at night and sometimes don't rise above in the daytime. My caesalpinia is the pulcherima which I think is red with yellow anthers but I have never seen one except in pictures and I grew mine from seed.Looking at your plant it would certainly be worth waiting for.
Hazel.

Cagary, those pics are stunning, your front border looks amazing, the palm is so unusual, what type is it?? congrats! Also, found it so encouraging for us Brits to see your plants in bloom, just hope Hazel and I can replicate your good growng. Is that REALLY possible over here??? lol!

Hazel...this is so spooky! I to have been trying to get similar plants to grow. I have at the moment a couple of Royal Poincianas, from memory, think mine are the red/yellow type without searching for the packet. They are this years seedlings as I lost my last years 2 over the winter. Do yours hang onto the leaves come winter? Last years didn't, but the stems were still alive come spring despite the g'h episode, but then died off. Hopefuly things will be better this year. The larger one is around 12 inches I would guess at the moment.
Never imagined they would flower at such a small size as from what I've read they need to be RATHER large. Believe the caesalpinias flower at much smaler size? Saw some lovely pink/yellow ones on eBayUk but missed out on them. Like to hear from you about how you look after yours, etc etc....here's a pic mine so far with Celadine, Mr Mango and the Desert Rose...

...and if you want a laugh....heres what they started off like when I forgot I'd placed them in the airing cupboard to germinate! OOPS!

Gill.

Hello Gill, Well they seem to have recovered well!!
My caesalpinia had very soft growth the first year and lost all it's leaves in winter. At first I thought it had died but on cutting the tip off found it was O.K. It took ages to reprout this year but the growth is much harder,probably because I've given it full sun (did we have any!) I have two Spathodeas,one I sent for as a year old rooted cutting and the other I grew from seed. Both are doing well. I saw them as flowering trees in Madeira and couldn't believe how stunning the flowers are and put it on my must have list. I have now brought all my plants including 50+ plumeria indoors for the winter because low temperatures are forecast soon. I think I'll have to move into a greenhouse to make room in the house for the plants!!!
Hope the DEFRA site proves useful but it is so expensive because you have to pay for any inspection they might make at the point of entry as well as any other costs. I think I'll be satisfied with what I've got otherwise I'll have to move into a mansion!!
Kind regards Hazel.

You Brits may want to try Caesalpinia gilliesii in addition to Caesalpinia pulcherrima. C. gilliesii is much hardier (USDA Zones 7/8) and should survive outside in Britain with good drainage. Although not as flamboyant as its cousin, the flowers are still beautiful, golden yellow with long red stamens. Flowering of Caesalpinia may require more summer heat than is common in the UK, but I don't know.

Hello Palmcoaster, Thank you for that information. Although I've vowed to not try anything else- that plant sounds very tempting especially if it may be reasonably hardy here. It is forecast to go down to around 1 degree here in the U.K. tonight so all my tropicals are tucked up for the winter but of course that means not enough light in the house and I am unable to persuade my husband to have grow lights.
Hazel.

Hi all, I second you Hazel on that score re the lighting! Mmmmmh, somehow found myself googling that semi frost hardy variety, and found we can get seeds from a UK site...looks very tempting!
I too pulled a load of my tropicals into the house last night (I got John to bring in the 2 blood drawing Agaves that jump out stab you...he got jabbed BTW and came in cursing them!) as the insulating/heating is not yet set up in the g/h and at 5pm it was already down to 6 degrees and falling. Today we are struggling to get into double figures even in the sun which is shining so brilliantly. It has dropped from 24 to 9 degrees in the space of a week, brrrrr. I now have plants on all the south facing windowcills and can hardly see outside!! We must be mad.
Gill.

Hey Gill,lucky you to have help bringing them all in. I have a very long trek from greenhouses to bedroom and it took around 30 trips to get all the plumerias into the house. Jim was on a charity fishing contest to raise money for leukemia so I can't grumble. I thought we only had to do 10,000 steps every day to keep fit but 100,000 nearly killed me!!!
Hazel.

As further encouragement to try C. gilliesii in Zone 8: The Hillier Colour Dictionary of Trees and Shrubs (1982) states that C. gilliesii blooms in July-August, but requires a hot sunny wall. The Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix tome, Indoor and Greenhouse Plants, describes it as hardy to -10C and likely to come back if cut down by frost in winter. Also that it requires less heat than C. pulcherrima to grow and flower well.

Hello Palmcoaster, that's very encouraging.Down to -10 is very cold by U.K. standards so I would imagine that if the roots were not damaged the plant would survive here. Thank you for your research.
Regards Hazel.

Palmcoaster, hello from me too. -10 was quite common in our particular area of the UK 25 years or so ago, but even we don't get down quite that far these days thank goodness. The days of being snowed in, waiting for the snowplough and digging out the drive only remain in my photo album!
I will be adding C. Gilliesii to my ever growing list of 'must get some of these for 2008', thanks for the info.
Gill.