M. huegelii - shohin

[GavinG]

Lisa, I have two huegelii for you. I'll be at the show set-up Friday, and take-down on Sunday. They'll do us until Craig brings over the truck-load he promised (wicked cackle). There are some thick-ish M. squarrosa there as well, but they didn't look all that healthy.

I hereby announce the Great AusBonsai Huegel-off, all challenges accepted. It will take place in October 2027, as this will be about enough time for me to get something worked out.

Thanks for posting, Craig.

Gavin

[LLK]

You are an ace, Gavin, many thanks! See p.m.
15 Years to create a huegelii shohin???????????? Bet you can do it in half the time.

Lisa

[GavinG]

Sorry Lisa, I'm slow. Stuff hangs around here for decades while we decide what dance we're going to do. See you Sunday maybe.

Gavin

[LLK]

Well, thanks to Gavin, the M. huegelii have landed! See below.
It will be a while before the results of the cutting back can call themselves "shohin", but the babes have to start somewhere.
This Melaleuca's name interested me, becaue I had never heard of an explorer/plant collector called Huegel, so I looked him up. Very interesting! He was Carl von Huegel, an Austrian Baron, who travelled in New Holland (Australia) in 1833 - 1834, incl. in W.A. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_von_H%C3%BCgel
Have fun.

Lisa

[Craig]

Hi Lisa , It's awesome to see you and Gavin getting some huegelii started, take care

[lackhand]

I hereby announce the Great AusBonsai Huegel-off, all challenges accepted. It will take place in October 2027, as this will be about enough time for me to get something worked out.

Thanks for posting, Craig.

Gavin

Well, I've joined the Great Huegel-off, so hopefully I can have something good by 2027 too! any tips on working with these, or just typical melaleuca approach? Has anybody ever attempted a larger one? The foliage almost reminds me of scale juniper, so it seems like with some proper ramification it might be possible. Thanks!

[GavinG]

Karl, there's just no stopping you! Best of luck. I have 3 months more experience than you... If you have a couple, ground grow some at least, to get good solid trunks quickly. Root-prune each year, and make sure there's some interesting trunk shape to start with. They seem to bark up fairly quickly.

Gavin

[lackhand]

No Gavin, it seems I'm truly addicted. I was actually on a mission to grab a few more M. Linariifolia to add to the ones I already have for a forest, but they were out of those. So I bought two huegelii. One is already in the ground, the other is just sitting there while I try to figure what to do with it. Their foliage is very interesting and I'm just trying to figure out how to make the most of it. Both trees are small and no real bark character yet, so it's nice to know that will happen relatively soon. I'll post some photos once I get something done on it.