A couple of L. scopariums

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Starfox
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A couple of L. scopariums

Post by Starfox »

Hey all,

I picked up these two little Leptos today, I have been on the lookout for these for a couple of years now and finally found some.
I have read through Kirky's thread and chased some other links up so I have some idea of what to expect, that they can be quite tricky. It would seem now may be the best time to start reducing the roots as although it doesn't feel like it we are nearing the end of winter and should have a couple more weeks of cold weather before spring finally breaks so it's either that or run the risks of leaving them in nursery pot for the year which worries me more.

There also seems quite a bit to work with or slowly reduce and they may make a nice smaller tree overall but I guess my question would be do I reduce it a little at the same time as a repot or maybe am I better waiting a while?

Any root work I do now will just be to take the bottom third or quarter off to fit a smaller size pot and put some better soil in and any pruning I do would be a light thinning out to remove unwanted stuff, does this seem like a reasonable way forward?
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Re: A couple of L. scopariums

Post by Boics »

Good luck!
Rory posted some info on these guys recently too.
Be careful or cautious.
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Re: A couple of L. scopariums

Post by Sno »

Hi . I haven't grown L scoparium . I do grow various Leptospermum . My expierance when reducing the root ball on more advanced stuff is similar to Eucs , water . This may work for you . Place the pot in a saucer so the roots are not submerged in the water but the potting medium is and you have a capillary action working to keep the roots moist . I would wait for mid spring but my climate is sub alpine so your winters would be milder . I've heard people have issues with this variety so take my advice with a grain of salt .
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Re: A couple of L. scopariums

Post by Starfox »

Boics wrote:Good luck!
Rory posted some info on these guys recently too.
Be careful or cautious.
Cheers, right you are. It was Rory's thread, my bad. Day drinking strikes again. :beer:

But yeah, a cautious approach seems the best one.
Sno wrote:Hi . I haven't grown L scoparium . I do grow various Leptospermum . My expierance when reducing the root ball on more advanced stuff is similar to Eucs , water . This may work for you . Place the pot in a saucer so the roots are not submerged in the water but the potting medium is and you have a capillary action working to keep the roots moist . I would wait for mid spring but my climate is sub alpine so your winters would be milder . I've heard people have issues with this variety so take my advice with a grain of salt .
Hi Sno, this is going to be a method I will try out with a water tray or bowl and definitely from reading up on them I think these will benefit from it so sounds good to me. I think now we have passed the point of getting any more frosts (touch wood) so that is a positive too.
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Re: A couple of L. scopariums

Post by Starfox »

After thinking about it a bit I don't think I am going to touch the roots this year and just thin some of the foliage for shape before summer. Being nursery stock I imagine they have only been freshly potted up so I don't want to risk any more root disturbance. The nursery soil will hopefully keep the roots wet too, at least that is my thinking.
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Re: A couple of L. scopariums

Post by Rory »

Hi Starfox,

Your plants' flower and foliage looks very similar to the ones I trialled. In hindsight I was fairly gentle on some, and 'man-handled' others. I think I only lost 1 out of the many I started with. I have since given away most of them but kept only the best ones.

Yours are a lot more advanced than the ones I trialled.
I wouldn't cut off the bottom third of the roots, as there is no real gain from doing this. You're only going to push the initial shock to a later date. Generally nurseries just slip pot for growth, so I wouldn't think you'd have trouble repotting. If it was me, I'd want to open up the root system as much as possible, but still leave a good mass of fine feeder roots on the tree. If there wasn't much of a 'fine feeding mass' of roots close to the trunk, I then left a few long roots on the tree to continue feeding and keeping the tree healthy.

But these were my observations, with help from Kirky:

* I left at least 50% of the roots and the foliage on them after the first repot. They love sun and love water. But with your older stock, you may want to only remove about 30% initially, but still work the roots and look at the inner ball a bit. But make sure you keep the roots damp while you do this.
* Might seem obvious, but make sure they get good levels of sun. Those that had the most sun were the fastest to recover and thrive.

But I may have just been surprisingly lucky.
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Re: A couple of L. scopariums

Post by shibui »

I can't remember having any trouble with L. scoparium after repotting. I handle them the same as any other native and root prune after the weather has warmed up a bit - Late October - December here. Am I the only one concerned that Starfox may be just a bit early in his season to be root pruning natives? Note that it is still winter over there an probably still pretty cold.

Rory has also reminded me of another warning for bonsai growers doing initial root pruning on commercial nursery stock. Some nurseries have a habit of potting on plants by placing the smaller plant into a larger pot then filling with new mix. This puts all the roots at the bottom of the pot. I am reminded of one occasion when I trimmed the bottom third off a root ball to find the top 2/3 trunk had no roots. I always start from the top and dig down to confirm that there are roots growing from the trunk before cutting any lower roots.

I would have to agree with Rory about doing a proper root prune initially. If you are concerned the just leave a bit more but at least untangle the mess and find a spot where there are a few decent roots near each other as the start of some decent nebari.
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Re: A couple of L. scopariums

Post by Starfox »

Hi Rory,

Thanks for the reply. Given the reputation of these I can understand going a bit more gentle with them but maybe I should get a first repot out the way and as you say open it up as much as possible. I will have a look at how the roots are today, I haven't yet as I didn't want to disturb them too much.

I will certainly make sure to keep the roots wet when working on them and plenty of sun should not be a problem too.

The good(or bad) news is my wife likes them so I think we will stop by and pick a few more up so if I can have a few to work on then all the better.
I can't remember having any trouble with L. scoparium after repotting. I handle them the same as any other native and root prune after the weather has warmed up a bit - Late October - December here. Am I the only one concerned that Starfox may be just a bit early in his season to be root pruning natives? Note that it is still winter over there an probably still pretty cold.

Rory has also reminded me of another warning for bonsai growers doing initial root pruning on commercial nursery stock. Some nurseries have a habit of potting on plants by placing the smaller plant into a larger pot then filling with new mix. This puts all the roots at the bottom of the pot. I am reminded of one occasion when I trimmed the bottom third off a root ball to find the top 2/3 trunk had no roots. I always start from the top and dig down to confirm that there are roots growing from the trunk before cutting any lower roots.

I would have to agree with Rory about doing a proper root prune initially. If you are concerned the just leave a bit more but at least untangle the mess and find a spot where there are a few decent roots near each other as the start of some decent nebari.
Hi shibui,

Normally I wouldn't touch a native for a while, it is just reading up on these I have found various advice ranging from the end of Autumn and through winter to just before Spring but the thought had crossed my mind, hence trying to get a feel for it here first.
From what I can tell of our forecast our winter is on it's way out, 20 deg C by day and 10 by night and it should only get better from here on in, but still it would be too early for most natives. I do have some stuff leafing out now as well but I do share that concern.

I will definitely have a look and see what is up in the pot later today, maybe it would be better to hold off a couple more weeks which would be fine by me too.
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Re: A couple of L. scopariums

Post by Starfox »

The wife wanted a couple for the garden so we picked up 3 more, when planting them out in the yard this is what the roots looked like. Far more pot bound than I expected and it's basically a solid root mass. Very tough to get even a chopstick or a rake in there but I know now that leaving them in the pot will be a bad idea.
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Re: A couple of L. scopariums

Post by Starfox »

As an update all 3 of these have survived and are still flowering brilliantly. They all had the bottom and sides shaved off of that horrible root mass, I'm thinking I could of took more off but next time maybe. I pruned 2 back before panicking and left the 3rd alone pretty much. I filled the space in the pots up with cat litter and pine bark. At least they have lovely little trunks too.

As a side note the two I planted in the ground I think may have snuffed it.
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Also yesterday at a different place I picked another 3 up, this time with pink flowers. These ones were nowhere near pot bound, probably recently potted up so I chose one of them to repot and see what happens before touching the other two. This time I took much more of the roots away and got it into a nursery pot much smaller. Not as confident with this one but if it survives I'll give the other two similar treatment.
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Re: A couple of L. scopariums

Post by Rory »

Good stuff Starfox :beer:

Lovely flowers on that new one too. Any scoparium double petalled flower is going to be good.
The trunk on that one on the left of the 3 dark flowered scopariums looks awesome. :yes:

I have only 3 scopariums left now, as I gave away most of the others and sold a few. The remaining 3 have the most interesting trunks so they’ll stay.
They are very hardy if you don’t remove too much root. As long as you always leave a fair bit of foliage on, they flourish.
I’m actually not a big fan of the foliage on scopariums. They have wonderful trunks and bark, stunning flowers, but very boring foliage. But they have a very high resistance to myrtle rust. And being a kiwi, they don’t mind staying wet for long periods.

Some other beautiful Leptospermum to try are:
brachyandrum
madidum
flavescens cardwell
juniperium
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Re: A couple of L. scopariums

Post by Starfox »

Cheers Rory,

Yeah I think the trunks on the left and right are quite good, they have this natural wavy type flow going on. Unusual for such small trees and nursery stock. The other ones may make good multi trunks, will know more when I remove some more foliage at some point. I'll try for closer pics too.

The pink ones are almost the same too, hopefully I didn't do too much to the one I repotted, it had the nicest trunk of the lot. Will know in a couple of weeks I guess.

I don't mind the foliage on them but it is kind of hard to see past the green helmet look for them, which isn't a bad thing for once with these. I think I will sit these in water trays come summer though, not going to take my chances with the wind that we get.

Those weeping species you mentioned are very cool, my Mum is coming in June and I was going to send her some seeds to pack in her case. Looks like I have found a couple more for the list. Cheers. :beer:
They all look great too, I'll have to do some serious online trawling to find other species though in the EU and hope they would ship here but I always keep an eye out.
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Re: A couple of L. scopariums

Post by Rory »

One tip from my limited experience though. Looking at those great specimens, some of them you may try to bring the foliage back closer to the trunk in future. But if you are going to try this, I would do it in 'stages'. In other words, cut back about 1/3 of the area you want to shoot closer to the trunk, but leave the rest of the tree with a heap of foliage remaining. This way it will stay healthy and provide enough vigour to allow the cut back area to shoot quickly and minimize any die back. This worked perfectly for me. And try to make sure the cut-back area is exposed to maximise the sun, otherwise it may not promote back budding.
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Growing Australian natives as Bonsai: viewtopic.php?p=289480#p289480

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How to reduce moss from the trunk without damaging the bark: viewtopic.php?p=295227#p295227
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