acacia howetii

[squizzy]

Ok I will probably take a plunge with this tree in the next few weeks and give it a repot and a bit of a trim. I would love some more girth in the trunk. My question is do I put it in a trainning pot or just go straght to a bonsai pot. I am flying blind here and am a bit nervous about how well the handle root disturbance. Something tells me they no like.

P1240003.jpg

Squizz

[Watto]

Squizz
I re-pot in October or November with no problems so far. I do have one about that size and plan to re-pot it in February so I will let you know how it goes.
From my limited experience thay appear to put on wood slowly, but there spring flowering is what attracts me.

[Paulneill]

Hi squiz

I have killed 2 of these so far and now my third attempt is struggling after its last repot that I did early summer.
I was very hard on the roots with the first 2 but was gentle and left plenty on the third and it is yet to grow strongly . I recommend to go very easy on the roots . The first one I had grew very fast and was going well before I messed with it. Maybe put it in the ground for a few years. I would love to find one of these growing so were to take a layer from.

[GavinG]

From what I can gather, a spring repot is better, autumn slightly less, not so keen on mid summer. At this stage, if you want to fatten the trunk, slip pot it into something bigger, feed well, don't prune, and let it run a full season - that will put the girth on it. Then in spring prune it back to the last few leaves (NEVER back to bare wood) and repeat the process over several years. When you have the trunk girth, then you start to refine the branches, and pinch if you want. When repotting later, only take a little from the roots. Treat them like a juniper.

You only get trunk girth when you let trees grow long. Cut back only once a season, for now.

There's a very fine howitti in the NBPCA collection with a trunk about 4cms thick at the base - it came about because it was a stock tree for a propagator - grow long, cut back once a year for many, many years.

Best of luck with yours. They are very beautiful in flower, well worth growing.

Gavin

[squizzy]

Thanks for the heads up everyone.

I thought I was dealing with a touchy subject

My concern with slip potting is that I will just add more length to the roots that I might eventually need to cut off? Will this cause more trouble later?

I wouldnt say its pumping on the girth but it certainly doesnt seem unhappy at the moment. Might have to leave my repotting until next spring.

Squizz

[squizzy]

Thought I might post an update of my howetii.

These are nice but nothing outstanding in my opinion. The flowers where supposed to impress me but mine was pretty dissapointing. The tree is a nice shape without a great deal of effort though.

Should I thin it out to reveal some more trunk?

photo to follow.

Squizz

[squizzy]

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