Collected (found) river red gum

[greg27]

A couple of months ago, a day or so after we had a ridiculous amount of rain, I found this while walking along the River Torrens - it was lying on the ground but when I picked it up the long root shown snapped. It was very close to the riverbank so I assume it was washed out of the ground when the river was actually flowing for once. It was quite long (maybe 3 metres) - I snapped it off and stuck it in a pot on a big angle. I'm 99% sure it's E. camaldulensis based on its leaves and where it was found.

At first I was thinking of the last photo as being the front but the other side has some appeal in terms of bark so I'm not completely sure now.

I'm also not completely sure where I should cut this back to - at first I was thinking of leaving it as-is and having a long straight thing on a severe angle with a mass of foliage coming up, but now I'm also considering lessening the angle somewhat and cutting back to the first vertical branch (just over half the current length).

Any thoughts are appreciated!

[Keels]

Top find greg i like it.

If it was my tree i would do something like below. I would chop the trunk here just on summer and grow that branch out as your new leader. Then chop again the following year and so on. I understand this should create some movement over the years. Well thats what i learnt from Gavin at the native Symposium this year.

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Also your leaves look a little different from my red river gum. Maybe your leaves are more mature then mine. Hopefully someone can advise on this also

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Good luck with it. Keep us posted. Keen to see more gums being developed

[shibui]

Also your leaves look a little different from my red river gum. Maybe your leaves are more mature then mine. Hopefully someone can advise on this also

The leaves on yours look atypical Keels. Many Eucs have quite different juvenile foliage but I don't recall seeing such large leaves on young E. camaldulensis. E. blakelii (hill redgum) has wider leaves than river reds but still not as big as that.
Maybe yours is on steroids or affected by some virus?
Misidentification is easy. Where did it come from and how much do you trust the grower?

[GavinG]

Keels, maybe look up E. polyanthemos - PeterH has posted some, and EUCLID is the Eucalypt index.

Greg, if you want to clip-and-grow the trunk, you might put it in something bigger to get long thick growth from a few growth points - quicker trunk development that way. From the size of the leaves it will probably need to be a larger-sized tree, so go (grow) crazy!

Gavin

[EdwardH]

Another option is to leave the end as deadwood. Allow the new branch growing from the underside to develop into the new leader but let the end of the existing trunk die back.

Cheers Edward

[greg27]

Thanks all, some things to think about! I think what's there currently does lend itself to a larger tree, so I'll slip it into a bigger pot, maybe soften the angle slightly, and let it grow for now.

[Keels]

Thanks shibui and gavin. Ill look that up. Strange that i brought this from cool country natives and i swear to god it was a red river gum

Give luck with your tree greg. Sorry to hijack your post

[MJL]

Hey Greg, maybe I’m in a raft kind of mood but ... another option may be to lay it down; reflecting how you found it ... so many gums fall and grow ... just an idea and something different ... even better if you lay it down and part of it dies back like EdwardH noted. Sorry to confuse you with another idea ....but I like the idea in the context of how you found it.


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[shibui]

I would be very surprised if That tree is polyanthemos Keels. Most Eucs have vastly different juvenile leaves which makes ID very difficult when they are young but I have grown lots of red box and I cannot remember juvenile growth looking like that.
I am sure that cool country natives is good but even good commercial nurseries can get a few strays occasionally. Maybe someone mislabelled a packet of seed before it even got to them. Maybe a stray seed ended up in the red gum seed tray. Maybe the apprentice who was sent out to label the trays made a mistake. Maybe it is me who is mistaken.
Whatever that seedling is it is still a eucalypt and will grow. It is very likely that the leaves will change as it matures but regular pruning can keep juvenile foliage for much longer, sometimes indefinitely.

[greg27]

This is chugging along nicely.

[greg27]

Whipped up a grow box for this guy so it could stretch its legs a bit. Probably could've made it a bit bigger but I can upgrade in the summer if needed. I recently "invested" in a drop saw so I can now churn out dodgy DIY grow boxes more efficiently!

[jessepap]

Looking good!

[MJL]

Really like where that’s going ...way better than any raft concept yours truly might have thought! I reckon your grow box is good too. It makes me think that a little care in making grow boxes, can be better solutions for my trees in transition too. I’m a woodwork nufty but surely even I can make a square box!!


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[greg27]

Really like where that’s going ...way better than any raft concept yours truly might have thought! I reckon your grow box is good too. It makes me think that a little care in making grow boxes, can be better solutions for my trees in transition too. I’m a woodwork nufty but surely even I can make a square box!!

I did strongly consider the raft style, but in the end the interest in the trunk was too cool not to show off!

I quite enjoy putting the grow boxes together, they don't look like much but are at least a little nicer than the black nursery pots I cut short with a Stanley knife. I get the wood for free from a place near me that chucks out old pallets - the wood isn't treated so they won't last too long but I can always churn out another one

[greg27]

The upper-most branch of this tree was starting to take over a bit too much, with each of the lower branches looking pretty sad and suffering from a small amount of dieback. I've removed the top branch, and ring-barked the tree just above the new top branch just in case I want to use some dead wood in the future. I also threw on a bit of wire to add in some movement (it looks less crappy in 3D, I swear).