AusBonsai

Allocasuarina nana 2

From my experience and conditions, this casuarina grows best in a moderate draining mix, with about 30% river sand.
It doesn't appear to grow well under shaded conditions and branches tend to weaken if not exposed to a few hours sun a day. They are relatively hardy against any pests.

Trunk chops are not recommended at the base, as I found they can often die altogether if there is no remaining foliage on them. I leave a lot of foliage on the tree after a trunk chop.

This was acquired as a needle thin seedling and allowed to grow freely. It has been repotted once. It is given osmocote slow release fertilizer and power feed liquid fertilizer at full strength.

The internodes are quite short and its quite an 'adorable' casuarina once you maintain the basics.

Cost: $3

Private nursery outside Canberra (can't remember the name)

Well this is going to be a good test of their hardiness.

I came back from a weekend away and a Euc branch had fallen and flicked the entire tree like a lever up out of the pot, leaving it lying up-ended roots exposed, in 35 degree heat. Awesome start
Not sure how long it had been exposed for but the roots were somewhat dryish. At least they had a small amount of mix still on the roots.

My big Casuarina cunninghamiana was not so lucky. It also had a massive Euc branch shear off a significant portion of the base. Thank you nature, you are going well at creating a very natural look for it. A recommended way of looking at it, is that it indeed looks more natural already, as the huge indented wound would never be something I'd contemplate, but the new growth coming from around the base is looking great. Always look for the opportunities along the way. Bonsai is about optimism and using what happens to enhance its natural appearance.

Hi Rory,

I'm liking your optimism Good luck with the Allocasuarina

Just feeding and keeping it in good health at the moment.
I haven't done anything yet. I'm just letting it get a firm grip in the mix after its setback earlier this year.

I am finally in the prime period of growth with full sun because of the winter sun path at my house so I expect big things from this little guy soon.

There is not much to report on this one either. Just allowing it to grow. It wasn't given a very sunny spot over winter unfortunately, as I had other material that were given the higher priority. Thus its just slowly doing its thing, growing.

This one hasn't grown much either.
These guys need fast drainage. I've learnt that, and going forward will be careful with this.

One of the branches on the upper right was snapped off and left hanging about 4 months ago. However, there is a thin thread still attached and keeping it alive.
Its a nice symbol of the struggle this things gone through.

This is a very difficult species to work with. If you cut off branches and leave no supporting growth, it usually dies back to the next lowest branch, and often dies back on the adjacent side all the way down until the next branch on that side too. This makes it an incredibly difficult tree to style for this reason. If you trunk chop and leave no foliage, it usually dies altogether. So you sort of have to let the tree dictate its own style. Its either perfect for this comp, or terrible. It depends on your viewpoint.

This one is going to be one of the trees I'm keeping, so I'm not going to push it in this comp.
It has suffered a bit, and is merely just being anchored to allow the roots to get a firm hold.
It was set back a lot initially due to the falling limb, but is now slowly regaining its health.

I don't have many of these Casy nanas left, so it will be worked slowly.

The main problem with this particular species is that they are sensitive to trunk chops and being cut back.
Cutting back can result in die-back, so the safest way to grow them is to allow new shoots to appear and grow strong, then cut back to that point and encourage more growth from the cut area. Otherwise, they have a tendency to die right back to the next branch/trunk.

And I like the trunk on this one, so I'm not taking any chances on this just for a comp.

The flowers are so beautiful, as they are so small but can litter the tree in blood red, its lovely to see.

So this Casy is one of the last 3 nana I have left. They are nowhere near as fast growing as a normal Casy until they are well covered in foliage, and even then they can be slow growing. Over time I now realize they will not tolerate a heavy mix at all. They eventually die and once the rot and decline sets in, it is usually too late. I adore them, they make exceptional Casuarina if you allow them to maintain a lot of foliage and don't work them hard.

I wont be putting this baby into a bonsai pot. Its far too early, and too dangerous for this relatively slow growing Casy. You need to grow these by simply allowing them to do their thing, not doing a heavy trunk-chop without green below the chop .... and always maintaining a lot of foliage at all times. They do not like being heavily cut-back.

The only way to safely style these Casuarinas is to allow new shoots to appear lower, as like most casuarina they do back-bud lower naturally if they have ample light coming in, and then encourage the lower shoots to become strong and bushy. Once this has occured you then cut off the higher growth above this, and repeat continually.

But because they are dependant on linear veins, if you cut off a section without green below it, it ALWAYS dies back to the next lowest junction point. And this lowest junction point was the root system on a lot of my earlier trials with trunk chops.