Callistemon Viminalis "mini red" nursery stock (bought mid 2021)
Posted: February 14th, 2023, 10:13 pm
I got this callistemon in june 2021.
I'm thinking to use it to take my first steps in some branch development.
For while I've been looking at it with no idea where to go with it, but looking at it with my morning coffee recently, I started drawing and thought, hey that maybe doesn't look too bad.
Regarding it's recent 'history',
I gave it a root prune repot and trim when I got it in june 2021.
I didn't go too hard because I've lost a couple already.
It was potted into a fairly large pot and just simple potting soil. It filled with roots quite quickly. At some point since then (or maybe twice) I potted it up a size while just trimming the roots a bit but not much of a reduction.
I cut off about perhaps about half of the top last year after flowering.
In autumn last year it started getting some balck stuff on the leaves (some kind of fungus?) and it started dropping quite a lot of them. I trimmed off where it looked worse, and thinned it out a little. I think around the same time it was getting a bit underwatered, so not sure if there's a link.
Now it seems a bit stronger (still seems to be growing a bit through winter) but I've seen some more of these leaves with the black stuff.
And next,
I think that I need to do more or less the following:
- Transition to better soil
- Work more on the roots (there are still surely some massive out-of-proportion ones)
- Pot down to a more reasonable training pot (something fairly wide but not too deep, which I can also sit in a tray for summer)
- chop the trunk(s)
Not sure in what order I should do these things or on what kind of timeline.
Currently I'm thinking that this year after flowering and when it's nice and hot, I'll work hard on the roots again (depending on what the root ball will look like) and improve the soil with a repot.
Then next year the proper trunk chop.
Does this sound like a good plan or better to do it all at once this year?
Open to all suggestions for style/health/process.
Some pics:
June 2021 just before it's first repot.
The full tree
A zoomed view of the trunk with indications where I might chop (perhaps a little too high..?)
A little sketch I did of that trunk and potential (?) branches.
I'm thinking to use it to take my first steps in some branch development.
For while I've been looking at it with no idea where to go with it, but looking at it with my morning coffee recently, I started drawing and thought, hey that maybe doesn't look too bad.
Regarding it's recent 'history',
I gave it a root prune repot and trim when I got it in june 2021.
I didn't go too hard because I've lost a couple already.
It was potted into a fairly large pot and just simple potting soil. It filled with roots quite quickly. At some point since then (or maybe twice) I potted it up a size while just trimming the roots a bit but not much of a reduction.
I cut off about perhaps about half of the top last year after flowering.
In autumn last year it started getting some balck stuff on the leaves (some kind of fungus?) and it started dropping quite a lot of them. I trimmed off where it looked worse, and thinned it out a little. I think around the same time it was getting a bit underwatered, so not sure if there's a link.
Now it seems a bit stronger (still seems to be growing a bit through winter) but I've seen some more of these leaves with the black stuff.
And next,
I think that I need to do more or less the following:
- Transition to better soil
- Work more on the roots (there are still surely some massive out-of-proportion ones)
- Pot down to a more reasonable training pot (something fairly wide but not too deep, which I can also sit in a tray for summer)
- chop the trunk(s)
Not sure in what order I should do these things or on what kind of timeline.
Currently I'm thinking that this year after flowering and when it's nice and hot, I'll work hard on the roots again (depending on what the root ball will look like) and improve the soil with a repot.
Then next year the proper trunk chop.
Does this sound like a good plan or better to do it all at once this year?
Open to all suggestions for style/health/process.
Some pics:
June 2021 just before it's first repot.
The full tree
A zoomed view of the trunk with indications where I might chop (perhaps a little too high..?)
A little sketch I did of that trunk and potential (?) branches.