AusBonsai

My council has been slowly removing all of the schinus molle trees from a local nature reserve, so being the selfless community-minded person I am I decided to help them out by getting rid of one for them. My favourite kind of collection: technically illegal but practically helpful.

This particular tree was pretty loose in the ground and was looking a bit sad so I don't think it would've lasted long with or without me and the council.

I collected this at the very end of December and had it in a too-small black plastic pot. I moved it into a grow box this morning, and saw a few new roots which is encouraging. It also has a couple of buds starting to pop out towards the top.

Hopefully this one continues on its road to recovery because it could be an interesting one to work with.

G'day Greg,

Good find - I had to look it up and the Google-machine bought me back to AusBonsai and this thread: https://www.ausbonsai.com.au/forum/view ... p?p=140861

I am not sure if bodhidharma has an update on his stump but the thread is informative regardless. Good find and good lick!

Thanks Mark, bodhidharma's stump is pretty incredible - hopefully it's still powering along.

I should've added a bit of info - the peppercorn tree is fairly common in Adelaide, I think they like our dry weather and alkaline soil. It was planted a lot back when the British first rocked up but now is regarded as a bit of a weed. There are some really impressive old specimens around; the one that made me want to find one for a bonsai sits at the main entrance to the Adelaide Botanic Gardens: https://adelaidecityexplorer.com.au/items/show/152. These photos don't really do it justice but it's hard to get a good one since it's so close to the fence and is surrounded on the other side by other plants.

There were a lot of these at my first primary school that we used to sit under for shade so it brings back some memories!

I have another somewhat-interesting looking one on the go that was a sucker from a larger tree in the same reserve as this stump, and also a seedling that I found growing again in the same reserve. Hopefully out of those three I can get something decent in a few years.

A few shoots starting to appear on this one

greg27 wrote: ↑January 17th, 2020, 4:07 pm There were a lot of these at my first primary school that we used to sit under for shade so it brings back some memories!

Bins at base for scale

From one extreme to another
Cheers RodM

terryb wrote: ↑January 29th, 2020, 12:11 pm Bins at base for scale

Looks about right!

I snapped a photo of the trunk of the tree that's at the botanic gardens entrance on North Terrace; it's an absolute cracker.

all this talk of peppercorns makes me feel like posting a couple of pictures of my little peppercorn.....





there doesnt seem to be a huuuge amount of information on the interwebs regarding these as bonsai, so its mainly just been trial and error with this one, especially having to realise about a month ago that they ABSOLUTELY SULK like moody teenagers when repotting and trimming roots. this one was lush before the repot, then lost 99 percent of foliage, only to now be coming back like the pictures show.
I dont know what it is about it, but i sorta like it.

thanks for reading and sorry for butting in on the post!

good luck with the stump greg, it looks like it will be a beauty in no time at all.....

Viva Las Peppercorn!!!!

The S.A. Bonsai Society did a talk on peppercorns last Tuesday night. Consensus was that they did best when repotted every year as they like room to grow. Repot when the weather gets warm, stand in a tray of water during summer and give massive amounts of fertiliser (e.g. a handful of dynamic lifter a week).

There were some great examples on display; big healthy specimens with gnarly branches and good ramification. I forgot to take pics though sorry.

Matt.

Dam, thats annoying! I was meaning to go to my first meeting at the SA society on tuesday just gone! I would have loved that, being all about peppercorns! oh well, that gives me a kick up the bum to come to the next meeting. hope to see you there!

juan73870 wrote: ↑February 7th, 2020, 9:30 pm I was meaning to go to my first meeting at the SA society on tuesday just gone!

Me too mate, was kicking myself when I saw a Facebook post saying peppercorns were on the agenda - only saw that after the meeting!

I went for a wander through a couple of bonsai nurseries the other day and saw several examples of peppercorns at each, so they're not as uncommon as I was assuming, at least here in SA where they grow like weeds (unsure if it's the same for other states?). Hopefully we can start working out enough about them to fill out the wiki page a bit: https://www.ausbonsai.com.au/wiki/index ... Peppertree

Yeah, clicking the link, I notice the page is a bit bare....
I reckon they make fantastic bonsai! A bit different, in a good way.

Here's my stash of these guys. The stump is throwing out some good growth which is great. I've got it sitting in afternoon shade at the moment but I might move it to full sun in the next few weeks once the leaves hardens a bit.

The small and medium pots are the seedling and sucker I mentioned previously - the sucker is going nuts so I may need to step in and clear it out a bit soon. The large pot is a very recent collection - one week ago - which I chopped back hard and has a few buds emerging.

I'm looking forward to making something decent with these, agree that they make good material!

I tried on of these once. I gave up.

treeman wrote: ↑February 8th, 2020, 10:51 am I tried on of these once. I gave up.

What was it that made you give up? Too hard to keep them going in a pot or end results not worth the effort?