For G.M [ Neli ] Another younger Tamarind

[Tambrand]

Here you are G.M,

this might be from a tree over 100 years old, as the seed goes. The tree is now gone as it was cut down.
The pot is a memory from the Bonsai shop of Innocenti in Tarvannuzzi [ spelling ? ] Florence, Italy. Nothing special, a comercially pressed clay [ you can see the ripples underneath the pot.]
But I liked it for this - stump .

New growth is red and it has yet to flower, and make the bark changeover. Only just starting the branchlet training, and this tree is cold sensitive, as it comes from the seashore, so on the advice of Jun, it must be repotted in April , with a defoliation taking place a month later.
I lost another multi-trunked example because I repotted in January. The trees around my neighbourhood, can be transplanted in January with no problem, but now everyone is repotted in April.
Enjoy.
Baba K.

[Neli]

Baba K looking very good!
Why not open a thread for your tamarind.
I chopped all my tamarind in the ground very very shot...They have the tendency to grow very straight trunks...and if trunk chopped they send 100 shoots at the edge of the cut and if one is not careful make a big big knob.
I love tamarind...I have one in the competition...need to update it but is not soo good so decided not to.

[Tambrand]

G.M,

I don't know if you have realised it, but there is a great deal of variety in - straight trunks - of the tamarind [ not tamardind - ha ha - sorry about the spelling error ]

Additionally, I have located, weeping straight tamarinds, straight tamarinds with domes, straight tamarinds with amzing trunks, straight tamarinds with upright foliage and the list goes on.
Here and there you do find gentle twists and curves, but there is so much variety, that I could spend the rest of my life just exploring straight trunked tamarinds.

I also found very low branched tamarinds and at least on fallen into a lean tamarind.

My favourite trees, Tamarinds, J.B.pines, Ficus p. and Fukien teas, especially the small leaf types.

By the way I drive around Trinidad looking for older Tamarinds and study the shapes, however these trees are probably just around 50 to 100 years as the tree is not native, just lots of seeds spread around mostly in the yards of Indian [ India ] descendants.
Thanks for looking.
Baba K.

* Do you also have two different colours in the flowers ?

[Inspired]

Gotta love seeing exotic sap!

[Neli]

He he he! They are native to Africa but I have never seen one in the wild...buy the seeds from Indian or Chinese shops hidden inside the pulp in blocks of tamarind.
I have seen how they curve and bend the seedlings in Asia...Malaysia...very very nice...so I am planning some young ones from seed like that.

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[Tambrand]

Aha G.M,

you can also take a young seedling and cut just below the cotyledon, use some rooting powder or not and just stick back into the soil.

I have tamarinds with the ability to branch just 1.25 cm's or 2.5 cm's above the soil. Got the idea from the J.B.pines treatment in Japan.
Here is an image.
I am presently 1 or 2 years down the road with this experiment.

Tamarinds grow too fast [ especially if ground trained ] to need wires.

I expect in a few more years to have a range of 8 cm to 16 cm specimens as well as 62 cm ones.
Laters.
Baba K.

* Love your spirit of adventure.

[Neli]

Yes tamarind back buds on branches very well. If you just nip a branch at the end it will get shoots at every leaf junction as long as there are laves, but to make it to bud down on the trunk...I have not managed so far. Another oddity about i is that if you trunk chop it, you will get close to 100 buds at the edge of the cut...and maximum 1-2cm bellow it...but lower than that you can only with for.
Tamarind is also highly apical. Top branches will fatten at the expense of the lower ones, if you dont slow the top by trimming it...
So if it is a mature tamarind, I just trunk chop it where I want a branch...and grow a leader from there also.
I think maybe if a tamarind is old...better to trunk chop it like trident for sumo trunks.
Good thing about tamarind is that the branches stay pliable for a long time and you can wire them even after lignification.
I now need to watch the T. i trunk chopped in the ground like a hawk, so I dont miss the buds...and remove them on time to prevent a lump on top.

[Tambrand]

G.M,

if you look at my avatar, I will lend you a few notes from my journals.

[1] In my climate, where trees rest from Christmas until around the End of February, and my growing soil is in a trough. I can get a tamarind with an 8 cm trunk in a year.
The soil in the trough is prepared as a bonsai growing soil, inorganic particles around 10 mm to 12 mm.

[2] For a tree at say 61 mm, I simply let the plant grow, and focus on the trunk. Looking at only the first branch, because any cut above that branch will sprout new shoots.
If I want curved trunks, just wire the seedling and calculate for trunk thickening, so you don't loose the curves as the tree thickens at the base.

[3] A little secret, for a back branch with a straight of trunk tree, the cut places the branch where you want it as the tree restarts for a new top.

[4] Chances are you have a longer rest period than I do since my minimum low is only 15 deg.C, as opposed to your 6 deg.c and we hold the low from 6 p.m until around 8-10 a.m.
So you may not reach 8 cm in a year as the trunk goes.

[5] Since I treat the Tamarind with a philosophy similar to a J.B.pine, the branches are few, but very thick. I also have to calculate for the thickening branches continuing to thicken the trunk past what I want.
Thus for a 38 cm tree I would stop at 5 to 6 cm trunk diameter, the branch thickening would take it onto a 8 cm tree.
This holds true for many trees that have thick or well healing cambium.

[6] I keep the cuts as small as I can, since it is then easier to focus on the design and less on healing the tree.

The thicker the trunk on the Tamarind, the finer the branching and denser the leaves, which allows for more than just a giant dome.
You can get the dips and bumps seen on a normal Tamarind in nature, and airspaces.

Tamarinds also prefer soil made from their own leaves/branches [ tamarind compost ] so I save the leaves in a plant pot, or collect fallen leaves / flowers from big trees.
Place it on the soil and it rots in about 4 weeks, with a thin layer.

As seen in this image.
I have placed the wooden slats around the tree and the leaves go in to sit on the soil.
Until.
Baba K.

*I use a line drawing with minimal shading to control the information to be placed on the tree.
An eraser allows for yearly changes.

[Neli]

My tamarinds dont grow that fast...Thanks...I have one in the ground I plan to dig soon...4-5 years in the ground.

[Graeme]

Keep going you pair - I am learning heaps here

[Neli]

He he he! Darling...for sure it is two of us only

[Tambrand]

Okay G.M [ now known as Grand Mum - ]

some years ago, an English friend dug out his back yard to just about 1 m deep, 1 m wide and about 4 m long. Heavy clay soil.
He put back in a mix of 12 cm to 20 cm partially crushed builder's silica based gravel, and added the more refined part of sugar cane stalks [ say compost ] and boy did things grow.

When trying to ground grow for a large trunk, you have to create a good soil mix, and space the trees out enough so they don't compete for food. A Tamarind would need a 2 m radius from it's neighbours. Zone should also drain well.
Or growth will be slow and unimpressive.

My growing troughs are filled with a large particled inorganic mix and sifted matured compost. When not in use for Bonsai, I grow tomatoes, so many metres per plant. The troughs are 61 cm x 61 cm by 3 m per trough, and there are about 12 plus 55 us gallon black barrels at full to 1/3 size.

Trough image.
Enjoy.
Baba K

[Neli]

I have 4 lines x 60m long...where I grow my trees. They were all 2-3-4m tall and I chopped them all recently. It was a jungle in there.
I was chopping for a week...I just mix manure in the soil when planting and fertilize every month. Trees grow fast but not the tamarind...

[Tambrand]

G.M,

it must be your cooler autumn and winter temperatures. If your climate is anything like Miami, you will have to be careful with true tropicals [ temperatures below 13 deg,C ]

I used to rent out two houses for an elderly lady, who had semi-retired to South Miami, and she noted over the years that Tamarinds, Mangoes and other true tropicals would be damaged with the occasional frost, sometimes dying back to the roots.

Well all I can further offer is how to get high density with the branchlets and for that you would need to be at the semi-finished stage to try the ideas.

Okay, so I shift to other tropicals, as soon as I get a chance I will show you my early efforts, the few that survived my 30+ years of growing.

By the way do you have Malpighia emarginata - West Indian or Barbados cherry - ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malpighia_emarginata

When I researched this shrub, back in the early 80's at the Lafayette, Louisiana, library, it was already listed as Native to South Texas. So it can handle a zone 8 ?

http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/#"

Going to look through my older images.
Until.
Baba K.

* Graeme - now what could you possibly learn, with your over 30+ years of Bonsai growing - Chuckle.

[Neli]

Hi BK,
Mango banana guava grow here very well. We never had frost here...lowest ever few nights of +6C.
I have malpighias...several...got them in Japan and they were 4 times the price of junipers...he he he! Actually my most expensive rough material...but I sort of styled them since.

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I checked your temperatures not a very big difference just seasons are reversed.