What to do with a bargain Callistemon

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kcpoole
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What to do with a bargain Callistemon

Post by kcpoole »

I find that wire cuts in quickly too on the ones I have .
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Re: What to do with a bargain Callistemon

Post by dansai »

Hi Karl. Looking good.

What are the cuttings in? If there is no food in the mix as is usual for cuttings, your cutting may have run out of stored food and energy and may need a feed. You can always liquid feed it in the pot it's in before potting up.

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Re: What to do with a bargain Callistemon

Post by lackhand »

dansai wrote:Hi Karl. Looking good.

What are the cuttings in? If there is no food in the mix as is usual for cuttings, your cutting may have run out of stored food and energy and may need a feed. You can always liquid feed it in the pot it's in before potting up.

Cheers Dan
Hi Dan, it's been getting the weekly liquid feeding I give to all my trees. It's planted in straight diatomite, so the feeding is essential.
Cheers, Karl
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Re: What to do with a bargain Callistemon

Post by lackhand »

Well, here are some pics. A little blurry, but you can see that the wire has cut pretty deep. Hopefully it will recover fairly quickly. I'm still pretty surprised at how quick it happened, but that's what I get for taking my eye off it for a few weeks. :palm:
IMG_2338.jpg
And here is the cutting. I decided to pull it out and see what was going on. It only had roots from one spot - a pretty decent root, for what it's worth, but . . . So I opened up the callous around the rest of the base, and used some rooting hormone. Hopefully more roots will grow pretty soon. At any rate, it hasn't missed a beat since I moved it a few days ago, so that's a good sign.
IMG_2341.jpg
As mentioned before, this is the weakest of the cuttings from this tree too. The strongest one is quickly becoming a bush of its own, and I've already pruned it back twice. I'm guessing the roots will be a bit better on that one.
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Re: What to do with a bargain Callistemon

Post by Neli »

Try not to disturb the roots if you plan to repot it...and you should have not removed all the side branches. They help heal the chop. I would have done all the leader growing before doing root reduction...that way is faster and was going to heal faster,
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Re: What to do with a bargain Callistemon

Post by lackhand »

The scars have grown out of the main tree very well. This is the strongest of the cuttings. I repotted today and it had lots of roots. They are a bit one-sided, which is why it's not centered in the pot (didn't want to prune the roots too much right now.)
IMG_2887.jpg
I would like to keep this one shohin size, so I might end up carving instead of trying to grow a leader big enough to get taper. I'm excited about this one though, should be pretty nice in a few years.
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What to do with a bargain Callistemon

Post by Elmar »

lackhand wrote:...Prepped following Pup's instructions except for one, I wanted to try some rooting hormone to see what happened...
Noice going LH! I'd like to know how the two techniques compare? Which did you find better/more successful/stronger? It's the one thing you haven't commented on so far...


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Last edited by Elmar on January 26th, 2014, 3:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What to do with a bargain Callistemon

Post by lackhand »

CoGRedeMptioN wrote:
lackhand wrote:...Prepped following Pup's instructions except for one, I wanted to try some rooting hormone to see what happened...
Noice going LH! I'd like to know how the two techniques compare? Which did you find better/more successful/stronger? It's the one thing you haven't commented on so far...


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EZ
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Yes, I swore I would remember which one was treated with rooting hormone . . . But I don't. So I can't really say. I am impressed with how well these do as cuttings though. Great fun to work with.
Cheers, Karl
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