I have around 11 buxus in my possession. So doing very well, others struggling a bit and 1 dying away.
I'll use this thread to document their progression.
I made a mistake when I dug them out of the ground. Left 9 of them in their original garden soil in pots and I find it is quite hard and very clumpy. Reckon it's too late to repot into more open proper soil.
Here's one of them. I like the first pic as the front but that also shows quite a bit of the large cut. The 2nd pic has the cut at the back but the front isn't the best. Any thoughts.
I've noticed with mine that allowing basal growth promotes trunk shoots. I would de-bud growth from base thinking it was taking energy away from breakaway tips busting, this from a scraped branching apex (cambium removed) which was tipping with buds for some reason. allowing base growth has given me more vigorous truck shoot growth equal to basal growth, which has 8 or so shoots, which i will allow to grow for tree health and root strength before i remove. The buds are not growing from where i would like form defoliated branches i left, listened to a so called bonsai expert who came prancing in while i was volunteering at the Landcare nursery. I should have known better when i asked a few questions and he all of a sudden became vague. I call bullshit. Leave leaf growth to help promote new buds on chopped branches, remove those when you see fit. chopping all growth sets you back a heartbreak of a growth year. I look forward to seeing the "expert" again. Also there was a native which we had, which i had let go because the manager and i couldn't remember had donated a seed but had let grow, this so called expert looked at it and shrugged it off, not this little black duck. If you'd like i'll take a photo of it. It's going to be a Literati. i think it,s a needle leaf letospermun of some sort
Here's one that carked. Still green but roots rotted and no new root growth. I can't stress the importance of using proper open soil medium when it comes to bonsai. This was was dug up and potted in its original garden soil which contributed to its state. Weather seemed fine today so I potted this along with 7 others in a mix of coir peat 10%, diatomite 40% and pine bark nugget 40%. Fingers crossed these survive. Ran out of pine bark which I need to order. 3 more to repot.
