delonix regia/royal poinsietta- how resilient are the roots?

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delonix regia/royal poinsietta- how resilient are the roots?

Post by Iheartbougs »

I collected a fantastic lil shohin-sized flame tree/delonix last year, it's growing strong now but the problem is that it had a massive tap-root (>6" long!) and most of the feeders were from the bottom portions.....I wanted it to survive since it was my first time collecting one but, ~8mo later, it's growing strong and I want to get it out of its tall/thin cup and cut that root back, am just unsure how sensitive they are to this - any & all thoughts on the roots of poinsiennas would be greatly appreciated :)
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Re: delonix regia/royal poinsietta- how resilient are the roots?

Post by melbrackstone »

Every time I've chopped the roots of the poincianas I have, they've bounced back quickly. Even severe root pruning... I would say they're very tough. As long as you keep all your equipment clean, your chances of success are high, I'd wager.
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Re: delonix regia/royal poinsietta- how resilient are the roots?

Post by dansai »

Good luck keeping in Shohin size!
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Re: delonix regia/royal poinsietta- how resilient are the roots?

Post by melbrackstone »

Good luck keeping in Shohin size!

oh yeah, lol. Good point dansai!

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Re: delonix regia/royal poinsietta- how resilient are the roots?

Post by Raging Bull »

Hi Iheartbougs,
You should be OK with cutting the tap root. If you have a look at most mature in ground poincianas you will notice they have big natural nebari, sometimes even buttress type roots that spread out considerably if the space is available. I have several poincianas that are about 1&1/2 years old in grow pots, and I'll be root pruning them and repotting them this winter, confident they'll take. :fc: :whistle:
Cheers, Frank.
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Re: delonix regia/royal poinsietta- how resilient are the roots?

Post by Iheartbougs »

Raging Bull wrote:Hi Iheartbougs,
You should be OK with cutting the tap root. If you have a look at most mature in ground poincianas you will notice they have big natural nebari, sometimes even buttress type roots that spread out considerably if the space is available. I have several poincianas that are about 1&1/2 years old in grow pots, and I'll be root pruning them and repotting them this winter, confident they'll take. :fc: :whistle:
Cheers, Frank.

The problem is that this thing has a long tap-root and zero feeders originate in the upper third of that tap-root....it's a neat little specimen and really don't want to lose it, do you think I should defoliate at all before doing this? Should I '2-step' the process ie do a 'tourniquette' so I get feeder roots closer to the trunk before severing the tap-root? It's just a tortured little royal poinciana, ~1" weathered trunk and 3 branches, I collected it last year and it didn't start growing til spring began a few months ago, am thinking that late-spring would be the ideal time to do this though!

What would you do for after-care? It likes full-sun when growing but I'm unsure what it'd want post root-chop, whether or not I do any defoliation (am thinking it'd be wise to at least remove the bottom leaves on the branches but unsure), since I'll just be looking for it to grow roots I imagine that I'd want *just* the minimal amount of light to provide enough photosynthesis for the leaves to make starches for new roots, just unsure if this means indirect light in my patio, maybe full light but inside a clear plastic humidity bag....the foliage on this specie is just so darn fragile, am really afraid of killing it! Have yet to find out when, if ever, I can do 'real' hard-prunes ie cutting below any foliage, ideally that'd be OK to do and I could do it in-concert with the root-prune so there'd be a balance struck, both the roots and the need for them obviated in one session allowing me to re-grow from there! I have pinched one of the branches and it didn't appear to care at all (ie no back-budding noticed...
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Re: delonix regia/royal poinsietta- how resilient are the roots?

Post by Iheartbougs »

dansai wrote:Good luck keeping in Shohin size!
Am confused what you mean? This thing has a really mature, weathered / 'high character' trunk but is small, am going for a real short, squat canopy on it but haven't found anything yet about how it responds to pruning (I pinched the tip of a branch to see what it did and it basically just halted that branch, never back-budded (at least not in a week, need to go double-check as it's been ~2wks now maybe I'll get a surprise ;D )

I know it's a lanky species so there's only so much you can do but like them and think I can make something neat with it :D
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Re: delonix regia/royal poinsietta- how resilient are the roots?

Post by Iheartbougs »

melbrackstone wrote:Every time I've chopped the roots of the poincianas I have, they've bounced back quickly. Even severe root pruning... I would say they're very tough. As long as you keep all your equipment clean, your chances of success are high, I'd wager.
Here's the problem: the base of the trunk immediately turns into a tap-root that's like 6" long and the feeders don't start til the bottom third of that tap-root, so even cutting it in half would leave me w/ almost zero feeders....am presuming that's a no-go? Also curious what your thoughts are on defoliating at this time, like if I'm going to be removing the ability of the roots to feed the top should I go and do a major defoliation, leaving just the growing-tips of the shoots?
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Re: delonix regia/royal poinsietta- how resilient are the roots?

Post by dansai »

Iheartbougs wrote:
dansai wrote:Good luck keeping in Shohin size!
Am confused what you mean?
I mean that Delonix regia has very large (30- 50 cm, or over 1 foot) mature leaves and course new growth that :imo: would be hard to maintain a shohin with.

You said you pinched back a branch tip. Just to clarify, are you aware of the difference between a compound and simple leaf?
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Re: delonix regia/royal poinsietta- how resilient are the roots?

Post by melbrackstone »

the base of the trunk immediately turns into a tap-root that's like 6" long and the feeders don't start til the bottom third of that tap-root, so even cutting it in half would leave me w/ almost zero feeders
In that case you might have to do it in stages, cut into the tap root add some hormone, or not, then bury it again in the mix, then in Autumn take it out and check if you have any feeders. Then you should be able to cut the tap root off and baby it through your (hopefully) mild winter. Here in the sub tropics we regularly root prune and repot in Autumn as well as Spring...and with some species year round! The poinciana is pretty tough.
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Re: delonix regia/royal poinsietta- how resilient are the roots?

Post by Iheartbougs »

dansai wrote:
Iheartbougs wrote:
dansai wrote:Good luck keeping in Shohin size!
Am confused what you mean?
I mean that Delonix regia has very large (30- 50 cm, or over 1 foot) mature leaves and course new growth that :imo: would be hard to maintain a shohin with.
Oh I get you! Sometimes jokes fly over my head lol ;D

Yeah the leaves on a mature delonix are very very large and I'm unsure how well they reduce - googling for 'delonix bonsai' yields few good results but there are some, to be honest I didn't get it thinking it was great material or anything I simply noticed it growing in a spot on a lawn's edge (friend's, not stranger's yard!) that it didn't belong so I grabbed it, these are prolific in my area so I wanted to start getting a feel for it because I could go and collect virtually any type of delonix (provided they take trunk-chops which I haven't verified yet - w/o that, mature trunks would be useless as they never have low branches)
dansai wrote: You said you pinched back a branch tip. Just to clarify, are you aware of the difference between a compound and simple leaf?
I'm confused how the 2nd sentence follows from the first one here...I pinched a growing-shoot directly above it's 2nd-highest node, to see how well it'd back-bud (doing this last fall when I'd collected it didn't give any back-budding, which was worrisome! Tried again since it's mid-spring and it was growing strong), thankfully this time it *is* setting a bud(s, would have to go double-check) at the node right beneath where I cut it. Were you implying that compound leaves // single leaves have different pruning practices? If so I'd be very VERY eager to hear it, as I've got a pair of bald cypress that are some of my favorite trees (and my only others w/ compound leaves - if that's what you call them on conifers at least....but BC's are atypical conifers in the first place..)

I've always seen compound leaves as a great attribute *if* you're aiming to make a medium-large bonsai, totally get you that small stuff (including my current delonix) isn't really good material, though larger ones are and this could be just the beginning if I find what I want ie that I can trunk-chop and collect these guys, because they are allll over the place in my area! Well, delonix *and* jacaranda's, I was taken aback the other day when seeing a 'delonix' blooming in purple, looked into it and apparently we're not awash in delonix but rather delonix and jacarandas - you wouldn't happen to know whether either of them handle trunk-chops and/or collection very well, would you?
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Re: delonix regia/royal poinsietta- how resilient are the roots?

Post by dansai »

I asked wether you understood the difference in leaf types as I have seen someone cut back a compound leaf as though it was a shoot and wondering why they didn't get any budding and the "shoot" died and fell off. Good to hear you understand the difference.

I have only one Jacaranda as pre-bonsai and no Delonix. The jacaranda I have cut back fairly hard and it shot profusely. It is young and only has a small trunk. Most of the growth grew very vertical. I have had experience with mature in ground trees of both species. Jacaranda tends to send very straight, vertical and quick growing shoots from any cut points when cut hard, usually very close to the cut. These are know as water shoots and tend to be fragile, often with a few dying off and more regular growth returning the next season. Delonix does a similar thing, but not as vertically straight.

As for digging, I cant really help on either sorry. Good Luck
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Re: delonix regia/royal poinsietta- how resilient are the roots?

Post by Iheartbougs »

dansai wrote:I asked wether you understood the difference in leaf types as I have seen someone cut back a compound leaf as though it was a shoot and wondering why they didn't get any budding and the "shoot" died and fell off. Good to hear you understand the difference.

I have only one Jacaranda as pre-bonsai and no Delonix. The jacaranda I have cut back fairly hard and it shot profusely. It is young and only has a small trunk. Most of the growth grew very vertical. I have had experience with mature in ground trees of both species. Jacaranda tends to send very straight, vertical and quick growing shoots from any cut points when cut hard, usually very close to the cut. These are know as water shoots and tend to be fragile, often with a few dying off and more regular growth returning the next season. Delonix does a similar thing, but not as vertically straight.

As for digging, I cant really help on either sorry. Good Luck
Re digging I'll end up finding out one way or the other when I inevitably find 'the one' ;D And yeah I'm certainly aware of compound leaf structure! Fair enough Q though, I know I'm not too active here..

Re the delonix/poinciana (lol my thread is poinsietta that just cracks me up ;P ), I went hard and cut-off the entire tap-root, doing it in a way where I figured it may kill it but, if not, it'll be set to be in a regular bonsai-pot....not only did the main specimen hardly even flinch at this extreme (80%+) root-reduction, but the giant piece of root that I'd cut-off, well, it was half-lignified and thick so I potted it by itself with a couple inches sticking-out of the substrate, it began throwing shoots from the edge of the wound!! Just like you described actually, I mean I was rubbing-off excess shoots daily in the beginning, and yeah they were showing incredibly strong apical tendencies so I only let 3 shoots stay on the stump and have "rock ornaments" on them, effectively forcing them to form their branch-collars at close-to-horizontal angles (once they're thick-enough I can remove restraints and the natural apical tendency will start working the horizontal branch upward, found it's better to over-shoot in this type of initial-primary-branch-development!)

I've actually started to wonder if either of my guessed ID's for this thing are accurate, am going to have to check to see if I got replies on another site asking for an ID on it so I could be sure of what I'm working with here!!
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