AusBonsai

I have been growing and chopping this Callistemon for about 4 years now . Today I chopped the top off . The plan is to chop the sacrifice branch off in a couple of weeks and then repot . This sacrifice branch is nearly a metre . Last year I had one grow over a metre . For the length of sacrifice branch you don't get a lot of trunk thickening but I want to minimize scarring . The tree is nearly 10cm high . I have one more bud at the very base to use as another sacrifice branch next .
Cheers Sno

Just curious instead of having a long straight sacrifice branch, why not shorten it to try and produce more branching?
Would this not encourage more trunk growth?
Cheers

I appreciate your pain in that the trunk is slow to thicken. I have one the same that I have been working on for about 6 or so years, and this year I allowed maybe 8 to 10 branches to elongate with the hope that would thicken the trunk quicker. My plan is also to have a shohin so I will watch this space with interest.

Hi Kirky I don't know if it would make much of a difference if you had one long leader or a multiple branch . The main thing I don't want on this tree is a big scar as it's only going to be a small tree . If you pruned the sacrifice branch to to get branches I think you would only slow the growth down in that area as the tree would send energy back to the main trunk there by slowing down the purpose of the sacrifice branch . If I left the sacrifice branch on it would eventually become bigger than the main trunk because all the energy is going that way . It's a balancing act .

Watto wrote:I appreciate your pain in that the trunk is slow to thicken. I have one the same that I have been working on for about 6 or so years, and this year I allowed maybe 8 to 10 branches to elongate with the hope that would thicken the trunk quicker. My plan is also to have a shohin so I will watch this space with interest.

Patience is a virtue so they tell me .I've got a few in the ground which I am experimenting different ways with , one of them has a ring of sacrifice branches around the base not sure how many branches are on it probably 5 or 6 .

Your right it would make the sacrifice branch thicker and therefore a larger scare.
Cheers

I was under the impression a long sacrifice branch with no, or little, side branches was better for a few of reasons. One because it keeps the foliage on the sacrifice from shading out the foliage you do want. Two, because it will divert energy away from the foliage you want allowing you to keep internodes short and better control of shape. And three, the long branch will move in the wind causing it to thicken quicker.

So 5 years on , quite a few battle scars but not much bigger . The pot is a little to big but I’m glad I didn’t put it into a smaller pot this year . My summer has been brutal for me ,I had snow which froze into a hard frost in the second week of December then after that 30 days of above 30 degrees . Still it could of been worse .

Nice tree there Sno. I am an old newby about native, is this species slow growing.

Hi bki . If you plant callistemon in the ground they are reasonably fast growing ,in pots they tend to be slow . Callistemon sieberi is quite variable in size , mine is a local one to the alpine regions which grow smaller and more shrub like than the lower varieties .This one suffered die back when I downsized from the ‘pond pot ‘ in the first photos to a pot which was similar in size to the one it’s in now .