Help with my Bottlebrush find...what next??

Bottle Brush
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Geemew
Posts: 1
Joined: October 7th, 2019, 11:36 pm
Favorite Species: Bottlebrush
Bonsai Age: 2
Bonsai Club: Greater New Orleans Bonsai Society

Help with my Bottlebrush find...what next??

Post by Geemew »

Greetings from New Orleans, Louisiana! I am hoping for some guidance regarding what I think is a nice bottlebrush I picked up at a long forgotten nursery out here. I am thinking of chopping back the tree and am hoping for some help. My wife of course likes it as a tree...I want to Bonsai-ify it. If you all believe it is not a good candidate well then my wife gets a new tree! Leaves are about 7-8cm long tree is about 127 cm tall and trunk girth has about a 9cm girth

In the pictures I’ve attached there is a long thin branch running up the height of the trunk. My thought was that I would remove this branch and leave the main trunk which bi-furcates some 30 inches (75cm) from the base. There is a branch to the left of the main trunk which I am certain is dead and I might make a feature from. —-or should I leave that long branch to grow thicker and use it in the scheme??

About 30cm up from the base there are two branches shooting off to the right of the main truck line ( the forked trunk).

There is a cut off branch at the rear with some balding bark at the base. I was thinking that maybe I could carve that to look a bit more sympathetic.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Any information I’ve left out? I’ll add it right in.

PS- sorry pictures loaded in reverse...1st pic is of the two branches that are shooting out and last pic is what I believe might be a good front for the tree.

We are in a zone 9 location here. Our winters rarely (maybe once) reach 0 degrees. I’m fact it it 24 degrees celcius right now. Our Spring is nigh!!
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shibui
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Re: Help with my Bottlebrush find...what next??

Post by shibui »

The bad news for your wife is that bottlebrush generally make great bonsai. They tolerate root pruning really well. They will sprout new shoots on old bare wood and are pretty hard as well. All the things you look for in a bonsai species.
Do not be afraid to cut off anything that does not look like bonsai. Even if you cut it back to a stump it is almost certain to grow again.

Callistem grow naturally in some pretty harsh places and dead wood is not uncommon in wild trees so leaving some bits for jins would be apt. The dead wood does tend to rot away quite quickly so make sure it gets treated to make the dead wood last longer.

I would certainly be cutting this one down to make a shorter bonsai but it is hard to make out the trunk lines in your photos. Just make th best shapes you can for now and then work with the resulting new shoots.

Note that callistemon do not particularly like to be root pruned in the traditional cooler season. I do mine when it warms up later in spring or summer. It does not seem to matter if the tree is actively growing. That just means it heals and recovers quicker.
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