AusBonsai

Ah so this is a brevifolia...always mistaken this for a cedar. Thanks Treeman.

Hal wrote:Ah so this is a brevifolia...always mistaken this for a cedar. Thanks Treeman.

you could be right there. Its very nice and typical of large cedars you see in Europe / Canada etc . Fantastic work Mike

Hal wrote:Ah so this is a brevifolia...always mistaken this for a cedar. Thanks Treeman.

It is. Cedrus libani subspecies brevifolia.

treeman wrote:

Hal wrote:Ah so this is a brevifolia...always mistaken this for a cedar. Thanks Treeman.

It is. Cedrus libani subspecies brevifolia.

Mike

How you go with repotting . hear cedar of lebanon hate getting there roots touched . Mine is quite old and due for a restyle . I keep mine in part shade and fairly moist and its seems very happy and still quite compact growth . When I had it in full sun and drier like my deodar it hated it .....

Matthew wrote:

Hal wrote:Ah so this is a brevifolia...always mistaken this for a cedar. Thanks Treeman.

you could be right there. Its very nice and typical of large cedars you see in Europe / Canada etc . Fantastic work Mike

Thanks Mathew, that's what I'm trying for. Most cedars are not shaped correctly IMO. More like pines. Mature cedars have a flat top and often have main branches up high (unless they are growing in a lawn without neighbours)

Matthew wrote: Mike

How you go with repotting . hear cedar of lebanon hate getting there roots touched . Mine is quite old and due for a restyle . I keep mine in part shade and fairly moist and its seems very happy and still quite compact growth . When I had it in full sun and drier like my deodar it hated it .....

You should be able to keep it in full sun all year except really hot days. I don't know why yours didn't do well but you can bet it had something to do with the roots. Maybe a dry spot in the root pad that you are not aware of? The gold tipped variety will burn easily. I suspect the problem with repotting is due to a lack of fibrous roots. In other words they don't branch readily but just keep extending. They have roots completely different from pines. When you cut them there might not be enough feeder roots further back to sustain the tree. So the trick is to slowly reduce the roots until you get a nice compact root ball then you should be pretty safe. You have to force the roots to branch by frequent light pruning. That might take twice as long as it would with a pine. To do that it would be important to not wait more that 3 years between root pruning for the first 10 or 20 years or you will have to remove too much length if that makes sense. After that every five years is probably ok.
That's my theory anyway. I'm still working them out.

Mike I have to hand it to you!
This is a beautiful tree, absolute class and true to form, really impressive Mike.

Hugh

hugh grant wrote:Mike I have to hand it to you!
This is a beautiful tree, absolute class and true to form, really impressive Mike.

Hugh

Well thanks Grant. Very gracious and appreciated. I don't think it's anywhere near where I want it to be but as long as it improves I'm happy.

Great tree! Very impressive treeman.
Cheers slatz.