[Natural] Euchalyptus microcarpa Grey Box - Jan

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Jan
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[Natural] Euchalyptus microcarpa Grey Box - Jan

Post by Jan »

This Euchalyptus microcarpa Grey Box (?) was rescued from the guttering of a shed in an area of Grey Box Woodland when the gutters were being cleaned out prior to fire season. It had a respectable root system (growing on the rotten leaf litter in the gutter) and a long spindly trunk chasing the light as it was shaded by a big gum and a big pine.

The trunk was chopped to encourage branching, tree planted in a training pot and put in a very sheltered spot to recover - it got a bit of a wilt up when brought out into today's HOT sun to be photographed. I have a Euchalyptus meliodora, Yellow Box, a souvenir from where we used to live, so it will be interesting to compare their development.
Euchalyptus microcarpa Grey Box Trunk.JPG
The fluro paper is so the size of the trunk can be seen - dark trunk against dark potting mix made it hard to distinguish. In this HOT weather they all need to be kept moist to survive.
Euchalyptus microcarpa Grey Box.JPG
Jan
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Last edited by Jan on January 4th, 2019, 1:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: [Natural] Euchalyptus microcarpa Grey Box - Jan

Post by Jan »

Well, so far, so good. It survived so far and recovered from it's wilt.
20190407 043031.JPG
it is quite perky and has made good root growth. I am not going to disturb it in the pot at this stage, just trimmed the escaping roots and trimmed back the top to encourage more compact branching and back to the Mini Glasshouse (ex fish tank) to recover. I have placed some pieces of charcoal in the in the branch junctions (very light) to act as "spreaders"to start shaping the tree.
20190407 043838.JPG
So far, so good.
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Re: [Natural] Euchalyptus microcarpa Grey Box - Jan

Post by Jan »

As you can well imagine, in the cold climate of the Southern Tablelands not much has happened since the last image. The warm days we've had since the snow have started things moving so I've trimmed the new shoots back to encourage ramification as I would like to keep this Grey Box quite small.
20191013_162409.jpg
Before...
20191013_163442.jpg
After a trim and with charcoal spreaders in place.

Jan
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Re: [Natural] Euchalyptus microcarpa Grey Box - Jan

Post by Jan »

20191109 1104 Grey Box.JPG
This tree has put on a lot of growth in the last weeks so time to do a trim to try to keep it making new shoots.
20191109 1106 Grey box.JPG
And back to the glasshouse to grow on.
I'm trying to get as much growth and branching into this one while spring lasts.
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Re: [Natural] Euchalyptus microcarpa Grey Box - Jan

Post by Jan »

It keeps growing so I keep clipping.

Hope it ends up going somewhere interesting...
20200117 1745 Grey box before.JPG
20200117 1747 Grey Box After.JPG
And back to the Fish tank/Glasshouse to grow on. :fc:
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Re: [Natural] Euchalyptus microcarpa Grey Box - Jan

Post by Jan »

Not much to update on this one.
It has survived another prune, is still coming along and growing more new shoots.
The leaves are staying small - so far, so good.
20200507 1231 Grey Box.JPG
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Re: [Natural] Euchalyptus microcarpa Grey Box - Jan

Post by juan73870 »

I'm not sure that I've ever seen charcoal spreading before, it's probably widely used and I've been ignorant, but what do you find the benefits of this to be? I'm interested to know..... :lost:
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Re: [Natural] Euchalyptus microcarpa Grey Box - Jan

Post by Jan »

Hi Juan73870,
Charcoal is something that I've used this way for years. It is not harmful to the tree in any way, it's light weight, it does the job of spreading well and comes in a variety of sizes (and can quickly be modified to shape/size with branch cutters), it is readily available to me and last it comes at a good price.
As you can see this grey box is a very small tree with fine branches so being light is of considerable importance in this particular case. Seems to work for me.
Jan
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Re: [Natural] Euchalyptus microcarpa Grey Box - Jan

Post by MJL »

Cool... I often use small flat pebbles in a similar way when I need to spread/re-direct young shoots/branches slightly away from a less than ideal direction they are growing in. I have never thought of using lighter charcoal material. Good idea Jan. Thanks.
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Re: [Natural] Euchalyptus microcarpa Grey Box - Jan

Post by Jan »

This plant is starting to move with the warmer days - I'll continue to work on "clip 'n grow" with it to see if I can get it to branch more.
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Re: [Natural] Euchalyptus microcarpa Grey Box - Jan

Post by Jan »

20210406_122030.jpg
This one is looking a bit better as it grows slowly. Still perisiting with clip 'n grow and will replace its spreadsers after the photo.
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Re: [Natural] Euchalyptus microcarpa Grey Box - Jan

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20210916_170318 Grey box.jpg
20210916_170353 Grey box.jpg
20210916_170410 Grey box.jpg
20210916_170437 Grey box.jpg
Not much progress with this one, while I think the branching is on the inprove it has not progressed nearly as well as another plant rescued from a shed gutter the same day. As the other is in a larger pot I think this one will be slip potted to a larger pot, now that the Comp is closing, with a view to growing it on over the summer. I have it in mind to plant the two grey box as a pair (I'll let the plants inspire me as to the setting when they get to the stage where I'm happy to pot them into a bonsai pot).
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Re: [Natural] Euchalyptus microcarpa Grey Box - Jan

Post by Jan »

20220427_114003.jpg

Again little change. This tree has been a bit of a disappointment with its growth rate compared to the other slightly larger tree collected on the same day. Both have been treated the same re water and fert. but the growth has differed considerably.

On the upside it has been hardy enough to survive my horticultural blundering and the leaf size has come down well. While not the largest of gum leaves, natural Grey Box leaves are not small.

Now that the comp is finishing I'll transfer it to a grow-on pot to try to get a bit of growth and more branching next spring before combining it with the other to eventually form a two tree setting.
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