AusBonsai

Another rainy day on annual leave....

I have about 30 black pines that I've collected from our property 12 months ago so with nothing to do I thought I would do a formal upright, styled after the huge old araucaria heterophylla that stand on the cliffs around Kiama harbour.

I'm thinking of doing 7 or 9 of these in this style for a group planting

I may have to collect another 20 or so ( we have thousands of them in all sizes ) and start experimenting!

After looking at it for a while I'm thinking of jining out the crown.... Thoughts

nothing wrong with a living crown. Have a think about the future callitris forest you mentioned recreating. DO they have these? Do you have a pic of the forest or trees you want to re-ceate? I would love to see it.

AG

Here's a couple, and the only ones I've seen with dead crowns have obviously been hit by lightning

Just my but I prefer living crowns. When I first started bonsai I loved the lightning struck image, but I see it done so much, it now feels a little like a cop out. It seems like it's harder to find a good tree to make into a formal upright that has the correct size and taper without going for the dead crown, and that makes the live ones feel special to me. If you've got one that works, and i think yours does, I would leave it alive.

Have you thought of airlayering a nice thick branch with lots of movement?

Not really, the main reason being is that these trees grow straight up and the branches follow suit. That's the main reason I went formal upright

I have access to so many of them so I'm thinking of doing a few stand alone formal uprights and do a bunch and make a large forest group. I have dug a 6 footer with a pretty thick trunk. I'm going to knock that one down to under 3 feet, Jin the top out and split the trunk like a lightning strike has blown it apart

What's the scientific name if these trees?

Probably it is one of those trees. But I am sure you can do it. I have one also wants to grow straight only...might be the same as yours...I have gone with formal upright with it too.
But FU is a nice style...so I wish you all the best!

ViBeS wrote:

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Here's a couple, and the only ones I've seen with dead crowns have obviously been hit by lightning

Hi Tony,

I might be clutching at straws here but those photo's you recently posted look more like Norfolk Island Pines Araucaria heterophylla to me and appear different to your collected tree mate. Perhaps someone else who can ID the photo's correctly could assist, but they don't appear to be Callitris.

I like what you have done with your tree, perhaps a forest is something to think about with access to such material. The skies the limit with possibilities.

Cheers

David


EDITED: typo's

Yeah they are heterophylla's mate, they were just the inspiration for the style

The one in the pic is a bit of an experiment so see how harsh they can stand it. It was dug, styled, root reduced and replanted in a day. I've pulled them out of the ground before ( growing in the paddock ) and tossed them aside. Only to find a month later that they had rooted laying down and started growing again. I've run them over turning around near the front gate and snapped the trunks off down low, they are powering along! Needless to say I'm now giving those ones a bit of fert