AusBonsai

Hi all,

In general, in your experience , do Leptospermum bud back freely on old wood?Would they survive a big chop?

Please let me know your experiences with the various Leptospermum that have been tried.

For instance I have only grown L laevigatum form a small plant or from seed and have never done a hard chop; and have found that they trim well but have not experienced significant back budding on old wood.

Grant

Same experience here - no budding from bare wood on leptospermum after cutting back.

G'day Grant,

I have a couple of L. petersonii and have done a major chop on one of them. It already did have branches down low prior to the chop but there was an explosion of new growth after.
About 75% of the top was cut off in Summer of 2009. There was heaps of new growth so I removed most of the old branches as they were too stiff to shape.
All the current branches have grown since the trunk chop but THERE WAS already growth down low prior to the chop.

It currently stands 180mm tall from top of pot to top of tree.

I'm interested to know how they layer. This one has terrible roots and reverse taper issues that I need to address. Has anyone had experience with air layering them?

Regards,
Steven

G,day Grant I have only one it is Leptospermum brachyandrum, which shoots back on old wood profusely, it is one where you are constantly rubbing off new shoots.

Hope that is of some help.

cheers Pup

shibui wrote:Same experience here - no budding from bare wood on leptospermum after cutting back.

Hi,

Which ones have you tried?

Grant

My experiences:

1. Leptospermum Scoparium - absolutely no budding back.

2. Leptospermum Polygalifolium - may bud back much further away from the cut n if the tree is healthy.

3. Leptospermum Petersonii - will bud back. A guy from Queensland even successfully dug a big one from the ground.

4 Leptospermum Laevigatum - will bud back if the tree is healthy.

Hope that help. Cheers, CJ.

Steven, that tree is coming along beautifully. Has it ever flowers ? I ask as after 12 years mine still has not flower.

Warm regards n Cheers, CJ.

newzealandteatree wrote:Steven, that tree is coming along beautifully. Has it ever flowers ? I ask as after 12 years mine still has not flower.

Warm regards n Cheers, CJ.

G'day CJ,

No, I haven't seen it flower... yet. Have you had any experience with aerial layering Leptospermum?

Regards,
Steven

Hi all-

Species I have grown and notes on back budding (this is from very few replicates):

Leptospermum amboinense - some localised back budding, especially near base where epicormic shoots were present
Leptospermum anfractum - never hard chopped
Leptospermum brachyandrum - some localised back budding, only chopped it once
Leptospermum madidum - some localised back budding but none of it where I wanted it! Most mid sized branches died
Leptospermum polygalifolium - some localised back budding from bumpy bits on old stem, most hard prunes result in branch death
Leptospermum wooranooran - some back budding in mid sized branches following pruning, note this was a stem that had been shoot trimmed a lot
Leptospermum purpurescens - never been game but they do back bud in the wild (I reckon this could be king of tropical Leptospermum given time!)
Leptospermum scoparium - I pruned it = it was dead.

cheers
Ashley

All of the following collect & bud back on old wood.

L. grandifolium
L. petersonii
L. polygalifolium subsp polygalifolium
L. polygalifolium subsp cismontanum
L. trinervium

Steven wrote:

newzealandteatree wrote:Steven, that tree is coming along beautifully. Has it ever flowers ? I ask as after 12 years mine still has not flower.

Warm regards n Cheers, CJ.

G'day CJ,

No, I haven't seen it flower... yet. Have you had any experience with aerial layering Leptospermum?

Regards,
Steven

Yes, not a problem. Do it in autumn. Avoid summer.

Cheers, CJ.

oops - changing my response,
As I was repotting this morning I came across some L. grandifolium that were pruned back quite hard a few months back - Quite a lot of new buds from older wood on the trunks.
I think L. continentale should also produce buds from older wood too - it frequently grows back after slashing in the paddocks.

After experiencing the beauty of Ash's Leptospermum polygalifolium at the recent Cairns annual bonsai show I thought I would bump this thread and contribute some images of a few species I have at the pre-bonsai stage. I am fairly new to bonsai and invite your opinions and feedback.

As my intention is to establish a collection of mostly Australian native species, I have acquired a number of Leptospermum species and cultivars due to the lovely muscling and colour of the trunks as they age and their small leaves. I realise now that as someone new to bonsai, the challenge will be to style these plants in a way that enhances those trunk and branching characteristics I have loved ever since I was a small boy. I have a preference for shohin-sized bonsai and therefore I would require Leptospermum species able to tolerate pruning and can back-bud well.

A photo I have included shows a multiple trunked L. polygalifolium that I first grew as a single trunked specimen for six months before chopping that trunk back VERY hard. This induced many epicormic buds to grow and I intend to choose several to keep with the objective of creating a multiple trunked (possibly windspwept) bonsai. My challenge is to maintain vigour in order to grow the trunks but avoid the need for severe chopping in the future to create a shohin size. We learn from our mistakes and possibly this could turn out to be one of them...time will tell. I have also included an image of another single trunked L. polygalifolium that I am growing. It is from nursery stock and has a cultivar name 'Copper Glow'. You can see that after just a few cuts I am starting to get something akin to ramification. So to concur with other member's opinion, L. polygalifolium is a great candidate for bonsai.

There are also three photos of my Leptospermum purpurescens which has smoother more pink bark (having nearly finished shedding it's rougher bark) with deeper green leaves and young branches red. This is the species Ash believes might have a bright future and I hope his is correct. It is one sexy plant imho! One of the images shows the back budding that has occurred following a chop with the intention of reducing apical dominance and avoid those lower branches from dying off. But this dying of older branches does appear to be a feature of this genus and a potential challenge for new grows I suspect.

In summary, these two species that have budded back well after chopping (keeping in mind that these are young trees and older trees) and probably deserve a spot on many Australian bonsai benches.

Good to see some work being done on Lepto.

Grant

Just thought I'd bump this one, interesting read if you're considering chopping your leptos.

This thread hasn't been touched since 2012, what else does the AB community have to share on the topic?

Also Steve how did the layer go in the end?

Cheers,
Pearcy.

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