Allocasuarina Littoralis [Ryceman3]

[one_bonsai]

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Sorry for reviving an old thread but I saw this tree in the garden centre and wondered if they could used for bonsai. Anyway the above tree looks great. Excellent job. It looks really old and kinda spooky. It's nice to see someone different in bonsai.

[Ryceman3]

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Sorry for reviving an old thread but I saw this tree in the garden centre and wondered if they could used for bonsai.

100% ... one of my favourite casuarina/she-oak for bonsai. They respond well to being cut back (I leave green below predominantly but not always, if the tree is healthy you'll get budding near the cut site generally), they tolerate root reduction and pot culture very well and they seem to develop quite quickly in a pot both in terms of girth and associated bark development. I definitely recommend you give these a go if you find something that looks to have potential.

[one_bonsai]

100% ... one of my favourite casuarina/she-oak for bonsai. They respond well to being cut back (I leave green below predominantly but not always, if the tree is healthy you'll get budding near the cut site generally), they tolerate root reduction and pot culture very well and they seem to develop quite quickly in a pot both in terms of girth and associated bark development. I definitely recommend you give these a go if you find something that looks to have potential.

Thanks for the information. Doesn't seem too difficult. Initially I dismissed it for Bonsai because I thought those long leaves won't shorten much but the leaves on your tree are quite short.

[Ryceman3]

100% ... one of my favourite casuarina/she-oak for bonsai. They respond well to being cut back (I leave green below predominantly but not always, if the tree is healthy you'll get budding near the cut site generally), they tolerate root reduction and pot culture very well and they seem to develop quite quickly in a pot both in terms of girth and associated bark development. I definitely recommend you give these a go if you find something that looks to have potential.

Thanks for the information. Doesn't seem too difficult. Initially I dismissed it for Bonsai because I thought those long leaves won't shorten much but the leaves on your tree are quite short.

Technically they are not leaves, they are the branches. If you look at each one there are internodes along them. At each internode there are TINY leaves… really hard to see. You can cut back just above a node and new branching will emerge from buds around it… and maybe back below too. This actually makes them quite a co-operative tree to work on.

[gnichols]

It's ok to use scissors or does pinching instead reduce the chance of the tips browning off?

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[Ryceman3]

It's ok to use scissors or does pinching instead reduce the chance of the tips browning off?

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You can use scissors if the branch is more mature, it is easier to be accurate with scissors and on branches that are hardened off, it is more difficult to accurately pinch. But if the branch is quite young simply pinching results in the branching breaking at the internode itself, and then you avoid "browning off" quite a lot.

[one_bonsai]

Would it be safe to treat them like Junipers?

[Ryceman3]

Would it be safe to treat them like Junipers?

Dunno if you can treat them like junipers, I don’t have enough of them to be decisive on that… but you can definitely treat them like sheoaks!
i.e: cut/pinch when new growth has elongated, fertilise reasonably regularly, water often (more is better than less) and just enjoy. Pretty easy to keep in my experience.

[Ryceman3]

Repots on the weekend for both these trees… no clean up to the foliage on the first one as it was trimmed back a few weeks ago. The second I gave a light prune up top as it was pretty long, and both will be cut back and trimmed up to be back to their silhouette in a few weeks as we head into winter.

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[melbrackstone]

I never know how much to keep them clipped back, especially since some of mine are quite old now, so I don't want to stress them out. These trees of yours are inspiring, thanks Ryan.

[Ryceman3]

Update on both these trees after a bit of work in the last few days. I find these to be very easy/enjoyable to work on ... good fun!

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[Rory]

I never know how much to keep them clipped back, especially since some of mine are quite old now, so I don't want to stress them out. These trees of yours are inspiring, thanks Ryan.

I have lost casys in the past from constant over pruning, so I am reluctant to reduce to the level of what Ryceman does.
My hat is off to you though Ryan, you have a strong attention to detail.

I prefer a more bushy look to my casys, but each to their own. Yours look incredibly health for such a compact casy, well done.

Littoralis is the only casy that I have not pursued after many trials. I prefer torulosa, as littoralis naturally have that more erect growth and desire to grow up and strong. I find Torulosa easier for larger casys too, as they naturally develop that weep that makes it easier to get a more natural look and keeps the branches naturally happy with downward growth. I had experimented with many hundreds of casys, but I found that littoralis was the least hardy of all the commonly grown varieites. I know Hugh Grant prefers this of the casy varieties, but it also may be that littoralis is more suited to full sun than the stronger shade I was growing them in. But it was definitely the constant battle of the strong upward growth that diswayed me from so many littoralis attempts.

However, Littoralis' trunks are far superior than Torulosa because their bark is much more stronger and doesn't deeply fissure like Torulosa. When you grow Littoralis it can look a lot more natural because you don't have that ridiculously thick bulbous base that you can get from Torulosa (similar to Banksia serrata), that makes a smaller tree as a bonsai look contrived. The best solution with Torulosa was to not allow a lot of shoots from the base, and to selectively grow thinner based trunks that don't have the propensity to swell at the base, otherwise the swelling can just become really ugly.

Well done Ryan

[melbrackstone]

The shape of the first one is my fav. Love it!

[Ryceman3]

Littoralis is the only casy that I have not pursued after many trials. I prefer torulosa, as littoralis naturally have that more erect growth and desire to grow up and strong. I find Torulosa easier for larger casys too, as they naturally develop that weep that makes it easier to get a more natural look and keeps the branches naturally happy with downward growth. I had experimented with many hundreds of casys, but I found that littoralis was the least hardy of all the commonly grown varieites. I know Hugh Grant prefers this of the casy varieties, but it also may be that littoralis is more suited to full sun than the stronger shade I was growing them in. But it was definitely the constant battle of the strong upward growth that diswayed me from so many littoralis attempts.

Thanks Rory,
I guess in terms of natives (and even sheoaks for that matter) there are plenty of fish in the sea.
What doesn't work as a bonsai for one person might be the preferred tree for another. I had an A. torulosa and it was one of the few trees that died within a month or so of me getting it ... I never actually did much work at all with it. It was when my A. littoralis above were just tube stock, so I focussed on them instead. I'm not totally sure but it was most likely weak/dying when I got it, I was pretty inexperienced then and so not able to read the health of the tree as I probably might today.
In relation to foliage reduction, cutting back etc. I tend to get a lot of back budding when I trim back hard, but that's not to say there isn't risk involved. Like with everything in bonsai, it's a balance of past experience, knowing the tree and timing of tasks in conjunction with a million other factors that might affect the success including sun and water exposure, bonsai mix, fertiliser application, humidity, tree age and who knows what else. Any combination of these things will have an effect on the response from the tree. Sure there are basic fundamentals that can be relied upon when working trees (eg: don't trunk chop pines/junipers... if a tree is dry you should water etc) but many tasks are nuanced depending on all of the above mentioned factors.

I'm not trying to illustrate to others what they should be doing with their sheoaks, just posting how I work on mine and documenting their progression. For the most part things are working as I hoped, so I guess I hope that continues! Maybe there are parts others can adopt, but as with 99% of stuff in bonsai, it probaby "depends".

[Ryceman3]

The shape of the first one is my fav. Love it!

It's the first tree I ever really wired from scratch, probably pays sometimes to have no idea!