Eucalyptus, again

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Re: Eucalyptus, again

Post by Sno »

Gavin wrote 'The snow-gum is interesting - I think it's RogerH that has the other one. '


It was Wayne's .He had it at a native workshop a couple of years ago . id like to see Rogers one , his sounds like it has some age about it . I think you need ten years to grow the trunk after that they start to form there real characteristics .
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Re: Eucalyptus, again

Post by treeman »

PeterH wrote:This Eucalyptus sideroxylon is still in development. Just been re-potted into a smaller pot.

regards,
Peter
Hi Pete. How does this species react to soft growth pinching?
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Re: Eucalyptus, again

Post by PeterH »

Hi Mike,

The same as all my Eucalypts. Generally after soft growth pinching it will throw back 1 or 2 nodes with reduced leaf size. This causes creep over the years until it becomes too tall. I then have to cut the primary branches back and retrain the new growth. I think this can add to the look of the tree over time. There is a post here on the nicholii I did last summer or was it the summer before.

Regards,

Peter
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Re: Eucalyptus, again

Post by Boics »

Best thread of 2018!

My only contribution is that i'm growing a water gum which is in the early stages of development.
Only issue I have is that it seems reluctant to grow/ramify any lower branches with a real apical dominance.
Other than that the tree is very pliable and sets to shape well when wired - it also thickens very well.
Takes very well to root pruning/repotting which I have just recently done again last week.
One of the fabulous things about growing bonsai is as you get old and decrepit your trees get old and beautiful
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Re: Eucalyptus, again

Post by Rory »

In case anyone near Sydney wants to try any of these trees. Plants plus at Castle Hill has a fantastic range of natives.

I’m getting serious about Eucalytpus punctata, so I just picked up two 8inch tubs for $19 each.
They have a tonne of Eucs at that price with great trunks.
A really big advantage to going to this nursery is that you can see how big he foliage gets on all the larger varieties, thus making a more informed decision about what to experiment with.

On all the very large punctata stock they had left, the leaves still are only half the size of most other eucs of the same height (about 2- 3 meters high)
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Re: Eucalyptus, again

Post by Rory »

I'm getting disheartened with Eucalyptus. :palm: There, I've said it. :cry:

The main concern is pests / vermin / myrtle rust.

Of the 3 killers above, I am now down to only growing the following:

Corymbia citriodora
Eucalyptus punctata

.. and to a lesser extent...

Eucalyptus crebra
Eucalyptus curtisii

Everything else I've tried just has a gradual death. The energy required by Eucs to push out flush after flush of evergreen leaves, after a possum has stripped the foliage off it, is just too stressful for the plant.

scoparia, nicholii and all the other small-leaf varieties I've tried have very poor resistance to myrtle rust, and combined with a hungry possum it will usually kill them.

I have found now that Corymbia citriodora is the king of Eucs for bonsai in my area, but from what Neil says about them growing in colder southern climates they might not be as good down there. They are the only Euc I've grown that can permanently tolerate the above 3 killers without assistance.
its quite disheartening considering the volume of material I have tried. You actually don't even need to spray this species for myrtle rust. But on seedlings it may not be as resilient.

Leptos are just so much more resilient to the above problems, but at least I can still maintain citriodora, and hopefully punctata.
Punctata is amazing. The foliage reduces very easily, it ramifies easily after a cut back, and the root spread you get on these is the best of any Euc I've seen so far. Fortunately the young leaves aren't as tempting for the pests as other varieties, so it gets a longer period between defoliations. :palm:
The only issue with crebra and curtisii are that the foliage isn't as pretty as punctata. :shake:

A beautiful trait of punctata is that the foliage when kept small, actually resembles a full grown Euc leaf, unlike the smaller leaf varieties which don't resemble the iconic Euc leaf as much. (but that's obviously open to interpretation). I wont be acquiring more Euc material in future.
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Re: Eucalyptus, again

Post by TimS »

Interesting, i had to germinate some Eucs from seed for a project so i did regnans, pauciflora and subcrenulata. Interested to see how any of those will end up going with bonsai culture.
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Re: Eucalyptus, again

Post by Steve B »

That’s sad news Rory, I was backing you to identify some winning euc bonsai candidates. With your methodical approach I think you’ve given them a pretty decent run. Suspect it’s an illustration of the criticality of local conditions on what you can (comfortably) bonsai.

Out of interest did your ever try Corymbia Ficifolia (red flowering gum)? I’ve found them to be reasonably well behaved in both Sydney and Canberra (a much more discrete growing season in Canberra) at least in the early stages. Haven’t really worked on ramification just yet, but they have grown quite well and adapted to bonsai conditions compared to the Citriodoras I also have.
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Re: Eucalyptus, again

Post by Rory »

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your input. Yes, I tried my hand at about 50 different eucalytpus varieties.
I trialled just about every species that Cumberland state forest nursery offered (now plants plus) and many others from different nurseries.

I did trial about 2 or 3 corymbia ficifolia many years ago, but I don’t recall why I didn’t persevere with them.
It was probably not a great variety for shade in my early trials so hence I wouldn’t have perserved.

There are a few other eucs that I am growing that I didn’t mention above, simply because I have no idea what species they are. But they have amazing resistance to all 3 of the above mentioned problems.

It is heart breaking for me I won’t lie, but at the same time I am very happy with C. citriodora and E. punctata. The way I see it, I am very happy that through many, many expensive and painstaking years, I have narrowed down a few varieties with genetic superiority (for my micro climate). I have recently purchased many advanced material of punctata, but until I move to a house that isn’t so close to the bush and away from all the critters, I will leave them over 2m tall to at least be out of reach of the wallabies.

But definitely trial anything you want guys, because if you don’t get savaged by possums and wallabies, then you should be able to grow so many beautiful Eucs that I can’t. The following were some of the favorites that I really liked:
E. Scoparia
E. Robusta
E. Sideroxylon
E. Camuldensis
E. Nicholii
E. Saligna
E. polyanthamos
E. Tereticornis
E. Pauciflora
E. Sclephora
E. Cinerea
Angophora bakeri
Angophora floribunda
Last edited by Rory on May 8th, 2018, 8:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Eucalyptus, again

Post by Rory »

Steve B wrote:That’s sad news Rory, I was backing you to identify some winning euc bonsai candidates. With your methodical approach I think you’ve given them a pretty decent run. Suspect it’s an illustration of the criticality of local conditions on what you can (comfortably) bonsai.

Out of interest did your ever try Corymbia Ficifolia (red flowering gum)? I’ve found them to be reasonably well behaved in both Sydney and Canberra (a much more discrete growing season in Canberra) at least in the early stages. Haven’t really worked on ramification just yet, but they have grown quite well and adapted to bonsai conditions compared to the Citriodoras I also have.
Well Steve, not wanting to disappoint you, I’ve gone back to trialling Eucalypts. I just can’t suppress my spirit.

From the ones that I have left and after more research and years of previous trials I believe these species have great traits for bonsai. They have strong resistance to vermin and rust problems, but mainly retain the most useful properties, being reducible small leaves, somewhat reducible internodes, ability to shoot back prolifically, and minuscule die-back, so I’ve acquired many quantities of them.

So the species I am trialling with optimism are ...

Eucalyptus crebra
Eucalyptus punctata
Eucalyptus parramattensis
Angophora bakeri
Eucalytpus melliodora
Corymbia citriodora

One quite interesting result has been trying to reduce 2 trees of Eucalyptus punctata leaves. First off, the material was in great health.
I defoliated 90% of both Eucalyptus punctata trees, then again about 4 or 5 weeks later. The trees were only given about 1 hour of sunlight a day for the period.
So far its maintained the small size for 2 months. From other trials I did, defoliating only once slows down the leaf growth, but about 4 weeks later they start to grow bigger. This 2nd defoliation appears to keep the next sets of leaves permanently small. Ill try defoliating only the new growth from here onwards once it starts producing regular leaves again.

The pictures show the before and after of the trial reduction.
Punctata1.jpg
Punctata2.jpg
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Last edited by Rory on October 2nd, 2018, 10:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Eucalyptus, again

Post by GavinG »

Great tip on defoliation Rory, I will be trying this out myself this year. At what stage of the growing season did you start the process? I remember PeterH tried defoliation with E. polyanthemos, but the leaves just grew back the same - maybe the double defoliation might be worth a try on them as well. And the Angophoras. Have you tried
A. hispida? Interesting natural angles in its growth, and red hairs on the new shoots - could be worth a try up your way. Not happy here...

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Re: Eucalyptus, again

Post by Rory »

GavinG wrote:Great tip on defoliation Rory, I will be trying this out myself this year. At what stage of the growing season did you start the process? I remember PeterH tried defoliation with E. polyanthemos, but the leaves just grew back the same - maybe the double defoliation might be worth a try on them as well. And the Angophoras. Have you tried
A. hispida? Interesting natural angles in its growth, and red hairs on the new shoots - could be worth a try up your way. Not happy here...

Gavin
My memory isn’t spot on, but I believe the first defoliation was at the start of winter?
It wasn’t the best time, but they were completely stripped by possums.
The next defoliation was after the middle of winter I think.
I do not recommend doing it at the time I tried, but I recommend trialing it now if you do. The low level of sun may have somehow stunted the growth maybe, not sure.

I will be trialing leaf reduction on more varieties of Eucs in a much better and recorded trial, possibly this year or next year, from about mid spring onwards. But at the moment most of my Eucs are in trunk development and I don’t want to slow them down, but this trial on punctata has been exceptional and has really raised my hopes for certain

I have tried quite a few Angophora hispida before, it’s a lovely tree. However the leaves I found hard to reduce. It also was a magnet for pests, and the tree never seemed to recover from the constant munching of pests.
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Re: Eucalyptus, again

Post by MJL »

This thread makes me smile - as does the depth and history of this forum. At the conference on the weekend, I had the pleasure of numerous chats to GavinG (the originator of this thread). Gavin had a glint in his eye and a rather purposeful intent when he suggested that I go get myself a dozen Crenulatas. And that I will. Based on Gavin’s positive views - I thought I should look up Euc Crenulata on this forum and sure enough, Gavin’s all over ‘em.

Gavin - if you see this - trust me when I say I will source some Crenulatas.

Cheers, Mark


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Re: Eucalyptus, again

Post by GavinG »

Kuranga doesn't have any E. cren. at the moment, but should in a while. Tube stock is around, and they grow fast. I'm experimenting with growing in a pot half-buried in the ground, and it's near 2 metres tall for the season. Good to meet you. The glint definitely requires diagnosis and pharmaceutical management.

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Re: Eucalyptus, again

Post by MJL »

Hey - I was just thinking about the speed of growth of natives that was being discussed in the AABC conference thread .... I did not want pose the following thoughts in that thread as I don’t want to hijack that thread - so I thought I’d raise my silly thought here...

I’m thinking .... if the growth rate of natives is so fast then shouldn’t the re-potting and pinching/trimming reflect that. I think I’m going to get smashed between the virtual eyes for these next comments but let’s take River Gum - my seedlings are going coco bananas - I can’t keep up and the more I pinch to shape the more they seem to respond positively; good so..... what would happen if I also upped the root work from say once per year to repotting/root pruning twice or even three times per year ?!

Let’s assume I am not worried about getting a thick trunk quickly (or to put another way - I don’t want a seperate trunk growing phase), rather I just want to try and clip and grow a well ramified gum and let the truck thicken slowly and naturally over say 20 years .... if I am being so aggressive with the pinching/trimming - why not the roots?

My thinking is to up the anti on the speed and regulatory of the ‘treatment’ whole tree - roots and branches/leaves - to reflect the lightening speed of growth.

This has probably been discussed before but I could not easily find such a discussion - especially around upping the regularity of root work.

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