Ginkgo comes home

[TimS]

I cannot articulate just how much i love watching this tree develop. In the afternoon light as some rain clouds made their way towards my garden the light caught this tree and i just had a little moment of reflecting that not much more than 2 years ago i unceremoniously pulled this from the ground as a 6ft tall stump with hardly any roots, hacked it down to 2ft and a thin little new leader and two weird shoots either side of the base and popped it into a grow box.

Today i look at it and marvel at the development that has occurred in such a short period of time, and imagine how good it could look in another 5 years let alone another 20. I would love to get this into a bonsai pot, but the rate of development in the box cannot be ignored.

Ahh i know i'm a Ginkgo tragic, but it's really surprised me how quickly this has pushed on. It's edging closer to being able to be called a bonsai...

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[MJL]

Great to read the passion in your posts Tim. It’s challenging to find time for quiet contemplation in a noisy world. It’s clear that bonsai and developing trees like this help you to pause and reflect. On a seperate note ... your photo shows the lovely effect of natural side-lighting. MelB discusses that in a seperate thread.

[TimS]

Late summer update photo for the ginkgo. I moved into my new house in November and i've been mainly doing garden based work and not much bonsai work. I've just thinned it out a couple of times, removing unwanted shoots growing in bad directions as well as large leaves. In transporting it to the new place i snapped part of the top out of it, but its so strong up there it's not the end of the world.

I've thrown some wire on this just to hold out the two outside branches out wider to let light in and start to set up the 3 trunk thing that will inevitably happen. Hard to see with so much foliage so i'll post a winter photo.

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View of the cut point back when i reduced it from 6ft. Hard to see but it's already starting to roll over to heal it.

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Top down view, got shoots on all sides.

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[TimS]

Out of the polystyrene box and into a training pot. I don't like these pots with the scenery painted on them, but size wise it was suitable. Deep enough to keep the tree healthy, not so large i will get the rampant growth i was getting in the polystyrene box that i no longer need.

From here i'm planning to just start developing what little ramification ginkgo does do. I don't want it to really get much taller now, i'll probably just try to improve the top trunk line by cutting back to a lower shoot as they come.

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[Akhi]

Nice bones on that tree. Is that a Maple tree in the background?

[TimS]

Nice bones on that tree. Is that a Maple tree in the background?

Yeah it’s my Shishigashira motherstock tree, it will get planted out in the garden beds I’m currently digging and I’ll use it to air layer pieces off every so often I have a few plants I do that with, I’ve planted two ume trees in the front garden for the same purpose

[TimS]

Autumn photo, certainly not the best colour i've had on this tree over the last couple of years, but still i put it inside to enjoy it for the weekend.

Current height is about 75cm

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[TimS]

This tree was defoliated just like Big Kohuna, again very happy with the way the tree has responded to it.

Future plans for the tree are to replace the current apex shoot with the lower one that is heading back towards the centre of the tree from just above the big cut line, but other than that just keep on getting more branch development

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[TimS]

I potted this into a quite interesting and uncommon glazed Walsall pot i picked up at the Waverly Bonsai Show a month or so back. I'm a sucker for a left-of-centre colour glaze me, so i remortgaged the house and picked it and another more conventional glazed colour pot the same size and shape.

I had originally picked up a green oribe glazed Koyo for the tree, but when i saw this i had a lighbulb moment and thought purple and yellow will look way better than the green and yellow.

This is really a pot to display the autumn colour best in, but still i quite like it in the spring foliage as well. It looks very purple here, which it is, but there is also some teal green in it as well

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[Jan]

Oh, I do like that pot for this tree.

I agree, the colour will suit both the rich lime spring/summer growth and the butter yellow autumn foliage.

I have a small group (3) in a royal blue with navy/midnight highlights for the same reasons.

The tree is certainly coming along well. I look forward to following its development.

Jan.

[TimS]

Oh, I do like that pot for this tree.

I agree, the colour will suit both the rich lime spring/summer growth and the butter yellow autumn foliage.

I have a small group (3) in a royal blue with navy/midnight highlights for the same reasons.

The tree is certainly coming along well. I look forward to following its development.

Jan.

Thanks very much!

The royal blues are a great classic choice for Ginkgo, you really can't go wrong at all with the dark blue pots for the autumn colour.

The main drawback to Ginkgo is how slow they are to grow size, but once they are at the kind of trunk girth you like they progress quite well i've found

Look forward to seeing photos of your group in the future!

[gooeytek]

A little late to the party, but I've thoroughly enjoyed poring over this ginkgo saga of yours, that I joined the forum and made this my first post. I've have had an on-and-off relationship with bonsai over the past 30 years, and although I've only been dabbling with ginkgos for the past year, it has become my favorite tree to obsess over. Your ginkgo is fantastic.

[TimS]

A little late to the party, but I've thoroughly enjoyed poring over this ginkgo saga of yours, that I joined the forum and made this my first post. I've have had an on-and-off relationship with bonsai over the past 30 years, and although I've only been dabbling with ginkgos for the past year, it has become my favorite tree to obsess over. Your ginkgo is fantastic.

Thanks very much! GCH has been a delight to have in the collection and grow, hopefully a few people like yourself can see the merit in growing them as bonsai subjects. They are quirky for sure in that they take a very long time to thicken and heal over scars, but ramify in their own way reasonably quickly so keep your eyes peeled for stumps or garden trees with decently thick trunks and you'll be on a good path.

They have very reliable autumn colour compared to something like a Japanese Maple which really is at the mercy of the climate and Australian summer hot winds, so you'll be rewarded year after year.

Post up your own thread on your ginkgos and trees sometime too, everyone loves to see more trees!

[TimS]

Another one that i haven't updated for a while, over 18 months or so? Basically Ginkgo are super slow growing so its very easy to not update them as not much really happens

Anyway it's going great this summer, tiny bit of leaf damage but otherwise looking the goods. First tinges of yellow on the margins of the leaves so Autumn is on the way

Slowly moving forward, it's all clip and grow now and i'm lucky to get 2 flushes of extension per growing season so it really is incremental additions. Just slowly adding to the canopy and making the flame shape.

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