shibui wrote:I'm finding the same things with banksias. Ideal plants for fast grow techniques because you can let them grow big and tall then cut back hard and expect shoots from all over the bare wood. You are picking some graet trunks Rory. Now need to move on to promoting branching and ramification.
I can see some great trees coming out of these ones you've posted tonight.
Exactly, this is just what I do too. And the scar heals over relatively quickly. Thank you, I am now refining my collection down to a more manageable number.
Yes, I find I prefer to develop the branches a bit slower than other growers. I might be stupid and taking the long road, and have no idea what I'm doing, but I've got this far from my own experiments and trials. I mainly learnt all the horticultural basics from the legends on here like you, grant, mike, Steven etc. however with styling I think I'm on my own there. I'm still learning a lot and always keen to learn from experts and put my spin on it.
I made some horrible rookie mistakes early on with my casuarinas and gums and developed the lower branches too soon which ended up looking unnatural. So I haven't perfected a particular method, but more so I just cut back the branches that thicken too quickly while keeping the mid section of the tree in check, while only allowing 1 or sometimes 2 leaders to develop... but this greatly depends on the type of natural look I'm after. I don't have a lot of experience with working trees that are the ideal taper and height yet (except the shohin ones I'm trying my hand at), so again I'll have to read a lot more threads about mistakes and things others have done ....when I'm there. I've had to learn a lot to try and develop the shohin trees, as it's not my normal comfort zone. But I'm having a lot of fun doing it.
I started growing a lot of banksia serrata too, but I'm down to only 1 now. Integrifolia are fantastic material for bonsai and def. the best that I've tried of all the banksia.
One interesting observation I've come to is.... I don't see the need for defoliation in my 3 main native material. You get too many problems with gums doing this. There is no point doing this to a casuarina. And I find it really stuffs up a banksias' health by doing this.
