AusBonsai

In light of a few threads like Gavin with Gums, Grant with Lepto, Squiz with Banksia summing up different genus and their experiences from all the different users Australia wide, I would like to bring some attention to an often overlooked genus :

Baeckea as bonsai.

This would now be my favourite genus. I feel they make better overall native bonsai than any genus I've tried so far. (sorry casuarina)
They usually have very small foliage, are very hardy with rootwork and often have quite small flowers. Often the trunks develop a very ropey and sinewed look to them from an early age, making them delightful candidates for shohin sized bonsai too. You don't have to waste time trying to reduce the leaf size for a show, as they are usually very small.

I have attempted:

Beackea 'clarence river' - Excellent. The best all-round species of all the Baeckea I have tried. The foliage is very thin and short, only about 10-15 mm long. They are very hardy, tolerate a heavy root reduction and can grow in both light and heavy mediums. They tolerate all levels of sun and tolerate constant cutting back.

Beackea imbricata - Excellent. Tolerates root reduction and happily allows constant cutbacks. Also can grow in any medium, but may sulk if overpotted.

Beackea mount tozer - Still learning with this one. I've just started my hand at these again.

Astartea clavulata x Baeckea astarteoides - Excellent. Stunning floral display! And very hardy with rootwork.

From all the Baeckea I have experimented with, they can tolerate lower branches being shaded for quite sometime before die back occurs, more than many other genus I have trialled.

I have a lot of progression threads to post on Ausbonsai here about Beackea so I will include links here once I've started posting them.

Yes Rory, a worthy variety of tree for any level.
This one is garden collected Jan 2011. Mature trees make the most natural twisted trunk movement you could wish for. You just have to bide your time and make the right joices on what to eliminate. Dont even start me on the variety names, but I call this one Sannantha Virgata. This was taken 6 yrs ago and it fills out each year so a good cut back to define the pads rewards me every year and it's a lot bigger now. Magnificent in flower.
Stands 90cm h, 90cm wide.

Is there a trick to repotting? I have tried 2 or 3, and all died after repot. I do tend to go a bit hard on the roots when I repot, but maybe I shouldn't be cutting the foliage at the same time as the roots - I can't really remember any more. Any tips?

Cheers,
Pearcy.

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Alan Peck wrote: ↑March 29th, 2021, 3:17 pm Yes Rory, a worthy variety of tree for any level.
This one is garden collected Jan 2011. Mature trees make the most natural twisted trunk movement you could wish for. You just have to bide your time and make the right joices on what to eliminate. Dont even start me on the variety names, but I call this one Sannantha Virgata. This was taken 6 yrs ago and it fills out each year so a good cut back to define the pads rewards me every year and it's a lot bigger now. Magnificent in flower.
Stands 90cm h, 90cm wide.
ANBA2015.JPG

Hi Alan, I remember you giving a talk at the Central Coast Bonsai Society many years ago, and it was great to watch.

Pearcy001 wrote: ↑March 29th, 2021, 7:01 pm Is there a trick to repotting? I have tried 2 or 3, and all died after repot. I do tend to go a bit hard on the roots when I repot, but maybe I shouldn't be cutting the foliage at the same time as the roots - I can't really remember any more. Any tips?

Cheers,
Pearcy.

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

Hi Pearcy, I would try them again.

Don’t go hard on the roots if it’s the first root reduction. I would mainly just separate the roots and trim the ends just a little, so as to reduce the massive shock. And only do this when it’s in the strong growing season when day temps are around 26/27 and nights don’t go below 10.

Don’t remove foliage when you do a root reduction. Leave the foliage alone. You might get a tiny bit of die back like all natives, but it will be inconsequential. Banksia is the only native I know that just about never dies-back if you leave all the foliage on after a root reduction. So don’t sweat it if your Baeckea dies back a little if you remove a lot of root.
The reason not to take off foliage, apart from the obvious reason in that it feeds and keeps the tree healthy. But when you remove foliage after a root prune, you don’t know which sections the tree may lose to provide nutrients to, and if you randomly remove foliage, you aren’t allowing the remaining roots to dictate which upper section survives, thus causing further stress on the tree as it has to heal the upper cut areas.... amd also the section of branching you’ve tried to let live, may not be the section that the tree can support... depending on the flow of its internal structure.
Then.... on top of that you need to remember that evergreen trees have to put A LOT more energy into producing its leaves than a deciduous tree. So a large reduction of foliage and roots is a lot more devastating to an evergreen tree than a deciduous tree.

At your second root reduction at least a year or 2 later, (preferably after 2 years), then you can go harder on the roots. But again, leave the foliage on the tree and don’t reduce any.

With most Heath material, you should never allow the medium to get very dry for the first 3 weeks after a root reduction.

They just about all prefer full sun. I don’t use liquid fertilizer on them, especially not soon after a repot. I have eradicated most losses by switching to slow release fertilizer for all my natives. And like all natives, if you have done a repot, don’t allow flowers to remain on the tree or to develop for at least a month afterwards.

And most importantly I do not recommend heavily reducing the foliage. Always .... always ... leave a lot of foliage on natives. To create ramification, do it in stages, like working half the tree heavily, but leave the other half with a lot of foliage to quickly speed up the recovery and keep the tree in optimal health. Then next year do the other side. With trunk chops, try to do it in stages if there is no foliage down low, so that it produces more backbudding at the point of the chop l, and then again at a lower point 2 years later, etc etc and so on.
With Backea it can depend on the species as some back bud well, and others can be temperamental, so best to approach it with cunning caution. By this I mean, try to encourage back budding on older material by constantly cutting back to the first 2 branches or at least 1 branch with healthy foliage.

If a Baeckea is not in optimal health, don’t cut it back anywhere!
Get it into full sun, check the roots, and make sure it’s not got drainage issues and get the tree back into full health before you cut them back.

Thanks Rory. Mine have always been in optimal health but maybe I go a little hard on the root reduction, I definitely haven't given up on them just yet. There's another on my benches as we speak that I'll try do a more subtle root prune to next summer, let's see if a slower approach makes a difference this time.

Cheers.

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Hi Rory,
I am really glad you started this thread, as I just acquired a Baeckea and have no experience with this species. I think it is Baeckea virgata nana. The small tree is sitting in a 15 cm nuraery pot in awful powdery soil. It is 28 cm high, has 5 very slender trunks and a wide flat pancake of fine foliage on top. It doesn't look as if it ever backbudded. I think it has been neglected for at least 2 years. It's too late in the season for repotting, would slip potting in a bigger pot with bonsai soil be advisable? How frost tender is it likely to be? I certainly won't touch the foliage right now, but what can I do later on to encourage backbudding, if that's at all possible?
Thank you for all the advice given above, it's going to come in most usefully.

Lisa

LLK wrote: ↑March 31st, 2021, 8:31 am Hi Rory,
I am really glad you started this thread, as I just acquired a Baeckea and have no experience with this species. I think it is Baeckea virgata nana. The small tree is sitting in a 15 cm nuraery pot in awful powdery soil. It is 28 cm high, has 5 very slender trunks and a wide flat pancake of fine foliage on top. It doesn't look as if it ever backbudded. I think it has been neglected for at least 2 years. It's too late in the season for repotting, would slip potting in a bigger pot with bonsai soil be advisable? How frost tender is it likely to be? I certainly won't touch the foliage right now, but what can I do later on to encourage backbudding, if that's at all possible?
Thank you for all the advice given above, it's going to come in most usefully.

Lisa

Hi Lisa

When you say its in an awful powdery soil, I am not sure what you mean by this. If you think the mix isn't draining well or has an issue then you could consider it and carefully pry open the roots and loosen and remove the mix, being careful not to cut any roots. But if it otherwise appears healthy - being in Canberra - I probably wouldn't touch it until about November.

I did acquire some of the species you have, but I didn't get anywhere at the time because of vermin eating them. I am not sure if they back bud well, but either way if you like the material I would just try to keep it healthy until November. Then in November, just remove all the mix and spread out the roots and do as little damage as possible, and leave it to then grow for 8 months, and get it heathly again before you attempt back budding and/or root reduction.

And with attempting back-budding, I would strongly advise against cutting back the foliage heavily all over. I always got better results on most heath material by cutting back and leaving a few shoots on only a select few branches first. Then let the remainder of the heavy foliage on other branches that you haven't cut back, feed the tree and encourage the repair and growth of new shoots on the cut back branches. Otherwise if you cut heavily the foliage all over, then the tree goes into a survival mode, and may die back complete branches and encourage only the stronger more able branches to survive and thrive.

We don't get frost really where we are, so you'd need input from Canberrans on that one.

Thanks lots, Rory. I've saved all that. I love advice that is based on knowledge and a good sense of logic.
Lisa