Eucalyptus Wandoo - Species Trial

[Patmet]

I've been really enjoying my local Eucalypt species out in the landscape lately, so I've started to source some of my favourites to try and develop into bonsai.

All my other Eucs have been started as seedling or very young nursery plants, so I bought this one for something a little further along in growth.

The southern WA Wandoo woodland is very interesting and beautiful. The old hollowed out Wandoo are home to Echidnas and the endangered Numbat.

These trees are known to be long lived and have smooth trunks with a striking yellow/orange/grey mottled appearance.

I'm working towards a larger sized tree with this one. It has some nice curves in the inital trunk. I know these will become quite inconspicuous as it thickens, but the very subtle movement is natural for this species that typically grows fairly straight in the lower section of trunk.

My plans for this tree on first inspection is;

1) I am going to need to do an initial root work at some stage in the near future so I know what's going on down there.

2) I will probably cut the top section back to the first two branches to become the new trunk. I need to decide whether to do this before initial root work, leaving root work until later next year. Or leave the top section to keep growing the trunk and do root work sooner. Decisions....

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Where I will eventually cut back

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Wandoo woodland

[delisea]

Hey Patmet,

Personally I would keep it in the grow bag and work on developing the branches you want.

I don't know this species but a quick google and it looks like a tall relatively slender tree. I wonder if you could try a taller tree than you are thinking especially since I assume you don't if the leaves will reduce in size.

It looks like a a great species. Good luck with it!
Cheers,
Symon

[Patmet]

Hey Patmet,

Personally I would keep it in the grow bag and work on developing the branches you want.

I don't know this species but a quick google and it looks like a tall relatively slender tree. I wonder if you could try a taller tree than you are thinking especially since I assume you don't if the leaves will reduce in size.

It looks like a a great species. Good luck with it!
Cheers,
Symon

Thanks Symon,
I do want it to be a tall tree. I was planning to cut back to those two branches to start to develop taper and also add a little movement and interest to the trunk line, and let them take off to grow taller. And yes you're correct I have no idea what reduction I will get on the leaves if any. it's definitely safest to go on the large side with this species.

[Rory]

This leads on to a fascinating discussion regarding Euc styling. Personally, I lean towards delisea's opinion. I love tall Eucs all the time. But the mallet varieties look gorgeous as multi-clumped smaller trees, which creates a little bit more of a squat look. But on the whole, Eucs def look better with tall trunks. Generally "most" Euc species have tall trunks, but you do get species with more taper than others ... but generally the iconic Australian looking Gum can often exhibit those lovely tall trunks with long branches and very little taper. Each to their own.
Over the years, I've tried to be more accepting of how everyone interprets a native Australian styled tree. There is no right or wrong answer, but there is definitely a distinct difference between bonsai that resemble typical Australian trees, and those bonsai that just look like a squat bonsai.

Don't be afraid to go against the traditional advice of styling bonsai if its an iconic look for that particular species that you're striving for.

Side note: WORK THE ROOTS NOW!
Euc roots will thicken ridiculously fast, and in that, you'll end up with a twisted claw that is a nightmare to deal with if you leave it.
Always work roots as soon as possible, especially as you're in summer now, so its the perfect time to get in there and spread them apart.

[Patmet]

This leads on to a fascinating discussion regarding Euc styling. Personally, I lean towards delisea's opinion. I love tall Eucs all the time. But the mallet varieties look gorgeous as multi-clumped smaller trees, which creates a little bit more of a squat look. But on the whole, Eucs def look better with tall trunks. Generally "most" Euc species have tall trunks, but you do get species with more taper than others ... but generally the iconic Australian looking Gum can often exhibit those lovely tall trunks with long branches and very little taper. Each to their own.
Over the years, I've tried to be more accepting of how everyone interprets a native Australian styled tree. There is no right or wrong answer, but there is definitely a distinct difference between bonsai that resemble typical Australian trees, and those bonsai that just look like a squat bonsai.

Don't be afraid to go against the traditional advice of styling bonsai if its an iconic look for that particular species that you're striving for.

That's a very good point. Now that I think about it from a pure observational point of view and not a bonsai aesthetic view, many Eucs including this species, do have very little taper in the landscape.

This is a reason I do enjoy posting projects on this forum because you can get stuck quite easily looking at things from a certain angle doing bonsai by yourself in your backyard. This is also why it's so valuable to have people locally that you can bounce ideas off of. I often ask my wife's opinion on ideas I have and it can be good because she comes at things from a completely non-bonsai-biased point of view.

On this topic though, I'm finding that as I'm maturing on my bonsai journey I personally like to combine the two when it comes to my native Australian bonsai styling. Depending on what the material is offering I like to impart a lot of the traditional Japanese and Chinese influenced aesthetic, but also sometimes I like to make an Australian tree look very wild as I would see it in nature. And then any combination of both. Like you say I don't think any is right or wrong also, just my observations of my own trees and how I have been designing them so far.

I do agree with all the comments though looking at the tree now. I think I will just leave it to keep thickening and let it do it's thing for a while now and see what the tree inspires. I will sort the roots as per your advice though it gives me anxiety to leave them without knowing what's there for too long. Would you leave the top growth completely as is when repotting?

[Rory]

I will sort the roots as per your advice though it gives me anxiety to leave them without knowing what's there for too long. Would you leave the top growth completely as is when repotting?

In regards to that query, I would refer you here to an example of what I first do with native nursery stock:

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[dansai]

I'm with Rory on looking at the roots sooner than later. Hopefully the nursery, or nurseries, that got it to this point have done a good job with regular repotting and not burying the tree too deep each time. I stopped buying advanced stock and rarely even stock in 140mm pots as root work is never done in standard production nurseries, so unless the tree is capable of producing new roots from the trunk, or a species that produces an abundance of fine roots, the roots are usually a mess. Best to get in there and check that out and start correcting it ASAP. Definitely before styling. It may even have to be done in stages.

I also tend to leave plenty of foliage on when I repot too. I may remove soft new growth, or give a trim to help the tree be more stable if I'm reducing roots and going into a development/plastic pot.

[Patmet]

I'll do the initial root work on the weekend and I'll try take some photos of what I end up with whether good or bad. I did have a scratch around the base and one side seems to be quite good with fairly even radial roots but the other side was a little bit deeper and appears to have less roots. Maybe a tilt of the trunk will help with that.

Watch this space...

[GavinG]

Just a thought: while many Eucs are tall, slender and slightly wavy, when you're driving past, you don't give them a second look... Trees that have had a tough life look interesting, and tell a story - there are plenty of Eucs around that do that, but they aren't "typical". I'd cut it down to the first branch, make a trunk that moves around, with good taper, and lots of dead wood/dead ends/false starts. With that leaf size I suspect you'll be looking at 70-120cms tall - you will need to be greedy and single-minded to get a good strong tapering trunk for that height. It should be fun!

Gavin

[Patmet]

I've repotted it now. I'm fairly happy with how it went.

I was pretty conservative with the root work leaving a decent amount of the inner root ball intact. I think it has a very good chance of survival. I would rather not risk it trying to do too much at once, and be on the safer side.

If all goes well and it's still alive and healthy, I'll work the roots again next year a bit harder and get into the core.

I also cut some of the top off just for the sake of stability. It's still got a decent amount of foliage.

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The good side of the surface roots

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The not so good side

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A lot of the feeder roots were at the bottom of the bag I'm guessing where all the water sits. The top 2/3 of the soil was pretty dry and the bottom third was wet.

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What I left of the roots. I cut most of the thick roots at the bottom growing downwards but I left a couple with feeders on the end to help the tree recover.

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One side in the new pot

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Other side. I tilted this side down to be buried more than it was before.

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In the new 400mm pot.