AusBonsai

I started bonsai a year ago and am still eager to learn and experiment. I have a few of the beginner trees like figs and elms but after seeing a few examples of clerodendrum bonsais I have fallen I love with them. They have small leaves and the beautiful old looking bark.
I have since purchased a seedling as it is just exploding with life in just the month I have had it.
However I have found very little information on clerodendrums anywhere, so I thought I would start a thread where people could share there tips or examples.
Any advice people can give on how to grow clerodendrums would be very appreciated. Things such as:
Soil they like
How much watering
How much sun
Fertilisers
When and how often to repot
Pruning
Developing them
Style tips
Etc

Here is my first one, I also have a photo of the tree that first grabbed my attention, but I don’t know the rules on posting photos of other peoples bonsai’s from bonsai shows.

hi mate

clero are great trees to work with and I beleive they are muchly an underused species, especially since they are so well suited to bonsai!

they love water and fertiliser usually water every day and fertiliser as reccommended on the instructions. mix will be best to be free draining, but they love water aswell. full sun is a defianate. Repotting as needed, which in your case I would stress to much about except getting a styro box, and slip potting it in, give the outter root ball and loosen up to help get it established.

what I would do with this one is get some movement into the lower trunk then let it grow for some time mate, you will find they do thicken quite well quite quickly so whatching the wire is important, if possible over exagerate the bends as they will smooth out when thickened, which might be a little dificult as I think you will find the trunk a little brittle. wrapping with some protection like raffia or bike tube will help with that.

in summer they love water so keep it up to them you will end up being able to get a whole heap of cuttings of this tree, stick them in some medium and step back because 9 times out of 10 they will strike and take off!

posting pics of others work is ok to use as examples to show what you would like, permission is ofcourse good, but if not at least credit the trees to them, if you have taken the pics with your camera they are your pics, but creditting the persons work is always a good idea

jamie

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Some good info there Jamie, thanks for sharing.

Dutchie_Boy wrote:Some good info there Jamie, thanks for sharing.

pleasure

Here is the tree that made me fall in love with the clero
The gnarly old bark is is fantastic.
Not sure who grew it but is is number 22 at the Northside Nursery Bonsai show that was on around the end of march.

Can you defoliate Cleos to get better ramification like you do with figs?

Rowdy

That tree was mine. It started as a match sized cutting in the 90's and was ground grown for a few yrs. I don't know who owns it now.

Brian

Yes you can Rowdy. Also, if you clip back to one pair of leaves you'll usually get two shoots - and they grow pretty quick in your area. They also like fertilizer.

I now know who has it. A friend BJ has had it for a couple of yrs

Brian

I also made the pot

Brian

You're a talented man Brian

Can clero's be defoliated to promote back budding?

Yes - they are pretty much like a fig. Cutting back hard will also produce back budding

Rowdy wrote:I started bonsai a year ago and am still eager to learn and experiment. I have a few of the beginner trees like figs and elms but after seeing a few examples of clerodendrum bonsais I have fallen I love with them. They have small leaves and the beautiful old looking bark.
I have since purchased a seedling as it is just exploding with life in just the month I have had it.
However I have found very little information on clerodendrums anywhere, so I thought I would start a thread where people could share there tips or examples.
Any advice people can give on how to grow clerodendrums would be very appreciated. Things such as:
Soil they like
How much watering
How much sun
Fertilisers
When and how often to repot
Pruning
Developing them
Style tips
Etc

Howdy Rowdy,

I've got two light bulb clerodendrum [ CLERODENDRUM SMITHIANUM ]
One bought, another from a cutting.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/xtolord/se ... 934764849/

Soil they like :
Im using a well drained soil mix [ 40% gravel, 40% perlite, 20% organic ] + lots of watering.
The original soil mix it was in was purely organic and had a high water retention.
When I did a repotting I found several dead roots where the old soil was still present.

How much watering:
Depends on your soil.
It will like a moist soil not sluggish or dry.
Look up walter pall's youtube video on watering, it pretty much covers it

How much sun:
Full sun to partial sun [ in case of recent repotting ]

Fertilisers:
I use a liquid NPK, one for growth, to get the leaves growing.
Then when its all green, I switch another liquid NPK for flowering. Usually several weeks before the flowers even start to form.
I'll look up the NPK values when I get home.

When and how often to repot:
I've repotted when it gets rootbound or when the growth is reduced [I.e. I see buds already formed but they dont grow at all ]
http://maubonsai.blogspot.com/2012/07/c ... -bulb.html

Pruning:
I've removed old excessively large leaves to promote inside leaves during flowering.
And also fully defoliated the tree after flowering to promote new leaves.
It produces buds on old wood and even exposed roots.

Developing them:
The one I have needs to be wired when the wood is still young / green.
When the wood grows old it does not bend easily, more like breaks in multiple areas or snaps in two.

Style tips:
It will depend on your imagination and the leaves types.
But a broom, literati, slanted, informal upright and upright, rootover rock would be fairly easy

Rowdy wrote:Can clero's be defoliated to promote back budding?

Yeps at least in my case it does