Banksia integrifolia 2

[Rory]

Progression thread : Banksia integrifolia 2

I have started new progression threads as my photos will be hosted externally now since the upgrade to this site.

I Purchased this Banksia from Bonsai World at Jilliby on the Central Coast on the 18th May 2016.
Cost $75

Grant Bowie's fantastic thread on Banksia was instrumental in learning about how best to start this off. I read and followed every instruction in his thread, including leaving stubs from a heavy cut to allow for die-back. Not to over fertilize until removing the proteoid roots. Leaving a full head of hair over winter. It has been a joy to start this tree off. It is amazing how heavy you can prune these, right back to the first node on a branch and they don't miss a beat.

This has now been placed into a PK pot, as it is now in the refinement stage.
I imagine in about 4 or 5 years I'll be very content with it.

I used to think that Casuarina were the best material for bonsai. I have changed my mind.
In my opinion Banksia integrifolia is the best overall Australian native material suitable for bonsai.
(For drainage reasons where the roots were so compacted and not getting properly watered) I have heavily cut back roots and repotted other B. integrifoilas in the middle of winter with 2 degree nights, … then as soon as Spring came around they all shot like crazy. Amazing resilience.
Although interestingly I have not seen this specimen shoot back below the first branch from all the trunk chops its had over the years.

This photo was taken 18.05.2016



This photo was taken 17.03.2017



This photo was taken 01.05.2018



This photo was taken 16.09.2019

[boom64]

Looking good Rory , are you planning to wire growth or clip and grow. I think you have convinced me to have a try with these to . Look like fun. Cheers John.

[Boics]

One thing I will add is that when they are cut back in the early stages of new growth the tree will often shoot up to 4 new shoots from a past node..
Simply rub off the unwanted shoots as they first protrude or a big bulky bulge of 4 shoots will shortly progress.

[treeman]

Good work Rory but too early for a display pot. You want it to grow flat-out for the next few years.

[Rory]

Looking good Rory , are you planning to wire growth or clip and grow. I think you have convinced me to have a try with these to . Look like fun. Cheers John.

Just clip-and-grow. I also use plant-ties to anchor if need be. Very rarely i'll use a piece of thick wire, but usually only braced against the trunk or branch to move the branch one way or another, not to wire around the branch if that makes sense.

One thing I will add is that when they are cut back in the early stages of new growth the tree will often shoot up to 4 new shoots from a past node..
Simply rub off the unwanted shoots as they first protrude or a big bulky bulge of 4 shoots will shortly progress.

Funny you mention that. I actually don't mind slight bulging, as they always develop this in nature. I often let whorls of 3 shoots develop, contrary to the common practice of only allowing 2 shoots to grow. I prefer the look it gives, as it has a much more Banksia feel to it when I do.

Good work Rory but too early for a display pot. You want it to grow flat-out for the next few years.

I politely disagree. Banksia branches will thicken with multiple shoots, just depends on how tall and what structure you want. Banksia are like Casuarina in that they will thicken well in pots, and you can easily control the areas of thickening depending on what you are after.

Although I'm curious. Did you mean you think the structure should be thicker, or that you think the growth will slow down significantly from no longer being in a growing pot. There is about 1/3 space left in that bonsai pot for growth, but from my experience - especially with integrifolia in my area - they grow rampant even with not much room to grow roots. Marginata/serrata and others are a little different, but integrifolia grows like a weed in my area. I'm not after anymore trunk thickening, just refinement.

But I'm honestly curious to understand what you mean Mike.

[treeman]

But I'm honestly curious to understand what you mean Mike.

If you want to develop any plant as fast as possible, restricting the roots will set you back. (Too much root room in a pot is as bad as to little). It's really that simple Rory. But I will try to make it more complicated
There are basically 2 stages in bonsai - the development stage and the dwarfing stage. IMO, the dwarfing stage should start when the tree has reached it's 3rd or 4th ramification. Many people jump the first stage too early and find (sometimes they don't find because they don't understand or they don't care about it) they end up with an imbalance in the transition from trunk to primary branch to secondary branch and so on. Your tree is basically just starting it's 2nd ramification. The way I approach this stage would be to select the best placed young branches on this second ramification and allow them to shoot away completely disregarding their length and concentrating only on their vigour, their thickness - especially at the base - and the balance of transition from their parent branch. You may very well be able to achieve good lengthening and some thickening in the small pot but in a larger pot, you will be able to get the tree to do this twice or more in one season thereby speeding the progress toward your ultimate goal. Having more vigour, the tree will also bud in more places over a longer period which further increases your options. This is effect is not often easily noticed, but it is there and over a number of years this accelerated development compounds and you end up with a finished and more balanced product sooner.
In other words, If I had a tree exactly like yours and followed the above procedure, at the end on ten years, mine would be much further along than yours if you kept yours in that pot.

[Rory]

Thanks Mike, I do appreciate your words.
You are much older than me and you're going to snuff it sooner, so I can see why you would want to speed things up, but it does make perfect sense what you're saying. If this was marginata I would 100% agree with you.

Once I've got the structure for integrifolia I prefer to ease off the accelerator - similar to Casuarina - as once an unwanted area has thickened, I can't go back. But having said that I hate seeing 'finished' trees with the imbalance of trunk to primary branch and I agree that it looks really bad if it will never really catch up soon to look natural.

I did not reduce any of the roots at all prior to placing it into that bonsai pot, so in theory I would say it may actually have been overpotted in the large orchid pot, but fortunately the roots were in perfect health. I use about 50% washed river sand for drainage in all my Banksia, so it wont be an issue with the 1/3 room left as it dries out very rapidly. If it was a slower draining medium I might have risked root rot in that orchid pot, which I have had before on Banksia in earlier slower draining mixes that I experimented with and inadvertently overpotted.

[shibui]

I have grown a few integrifolias and I have found that they are one of the few trees that seem to grow almost as fast in pots as in the ground. My sample size is small but I kept one seedling in a 30 cm orchid pot while all the others from that batch went into the grow beds as a trial. At the end of 3 years there was little difference in trunk diameter between the pot grown tree and those from the grow beds but by that stage the trunk and branches on the pot grown one was far superior because I was able to watch and manage it better.
if you want to grow thick trunks and don't have access or inclination to grow in the ground you should try Banksia.

[Pierre]

Looking very promising indeed, I really like the pot/tree combo.
Pierre

[treeman]

You are much older than me and you're going to snuff it sooner,

You sir, are tempting fate.

[Rory]

B. integrifolia 2-01 18May2016.jpg

18May2016

B. integrifolia 2-02 17Mar2017.jpg

17Mar2017

B. integrifolia 2-03 01May2018.jpg

01May2018

B. integrifolia 2-04 24Jul2019.jpg

24Jul2019

B. integrifolia 2-05 03Mar2021.jpg

03Mar2021

Just a heads up for those wondering what Mike is talking about....

The tree was placed into a bonsai pot at some point a few years ago, which was one of the photos from the earlier posts.
However, I can't seem to find the photo of it in a bonsai pot at that time.
Anyway, the tree had suffered root rot as a result of the pot not being level, and the mix wasn't draining properly.
A portion of one side of the roots developed a small amount of root rot, and thus it will stay in an orchid pot until we move and have an even level for a display pot. With orchid pots it doesn't matter if the pot isn't level as there are drainage slits all along the bottom of excellent drainage.

[Rory]

Such a great species to work with. I haven't done anything other than allow it to grow hard and I have been cutting back periodically.
Its not a great picture, but i didn't want to reduce any more foliage at this point.

B. integrifolia 2-06 10Jan2022.jpg

10 Jan 2022

[Rory]

I was working on this today so I figured I should post a better photo of it, as it has now been cut-back to allow the sun to better reach the main structure.
Yes, this is AFTER its been cut-back. I like to keep my Banksia bushy as insurance against winter. That way they stay healthy as they approach winter.
If this was late spring / early summer it would be a different story.

I'd say the tree is going to have a lot more of a mutli-trunk look than my original plan. The main centre trunk has now been allowed to grow about 1.7 metres tall. I plan to let it thicken a lot more before I cut back. This is a fine example of why experts like Shibui and Mike will advise not to be too fussed on branch selection at an early stage.... if there is one sure guarantee, it will be that you will eventually change your mind countless times during the development of your bonsai.

Species selection is so paramount and I cannot stress that enough to a novice, or even an intermediate grower. You really need to research species and your area before you invest money and years in something to find it just isn't suited to your conditions.....
We have had constant flooding and cloud for six weeks - combined with no sun and a slow draining mix - and you learn the hard way which species suffer. I have lost a few Banksia in the last few weeks (B. palludosa, B. ericifolia 'little eric', and one of my favourite Banksia marginata is looking terrible). Unfortunately I had cut these back heavily just before the torrential shitstorm of flooding and cloud, and they just deteriorated when the new growth didn't get any sun for months.

However, B. integrifolia has no problem with low sun levels and constant rain (provided you have fast drainage).
B. integrifolia is amazing, as it even has no problems with branches below the horizontal. The only requirement you need to maintain vigour is that the lowered branch gets strong sun and it will be fine.
I have found that Grant Bowie is indeed correct in that the dwarf variants of B. integrifolia are just not quite has hardy. They are still good, but they have been a little set-back during the torrential flooding and not as resilient.

Banksia.jpg

20 Mar 2022

[Grant Bowie]

Great work Rory, you are adding a great deal of info into the pool of Knowledge about these glorious trees.

Grant

[dansai]

Looking really nice Rory.