Conversation on Leptospermum

[Grant Bowie]

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Hi all,

Just browsing and thought we could do with a thread all about the different Leptospermum we use and love.

Please feel free to add types of Lepto that you have used and had good results from.

My personal favourite is L laevigatum, the coastal tea tree. I have grown others and intend to grow many more in the future, so looking for input.

Cheers,

Grant

[Keels]

Great idea Grant.

I have been growing a couple of leptos for just over 18 months now. Nothing really of note or to brag. Couple more years and i should have something decent.

Leptospermum 'Mesmer Eyes' - I picked up a plant at cool country natives in spring last year. It seems to grow fairly fast. Its leaves are very different to the others I'm growing. I haven't styled it in anyway yet. I will move the tree into a large pot to grow for a couple more years. I plan to expand my efforts into these leptos, they just have a really nice foliage and bark. Some examples i've seen on the internet and CBS meetings have really impressed me.

Below was my lepto experiment in 2019. I received 15 seedlings (5 each below) from landcare in NSW. I got the trees off the local landcare as they are local species to the Canberra\rural NSW. I wired some of the seedling into odd shapes and planted them all in a large foam fruit box. After the first 6 months i only had 4 trees left. I believe i repotted the seedlings when it was just too cold and that's why i lost so many. I think i only have river tea trees and wooly tea trees left. I dug a river tea tree in December, it survived and recovered fine. lesson learnt.

Leptospermum obovatum - River tea tree (I noticed that they expand at the base very quickly)

Leptospermum contentinal - prickly tea tree (Everything i started will is dead)

Leptospermum lanigerum - Wooly tea tree


Leptospermum 'Pink Cascade" - Picked this tree up in Melbourne at Garden World in July 2019. Current growing in a colander and doing really well. flowers even though its a very young tree.


Anyway i might actually have a lepto problem after writing that, i didn't realise i had so many

[terryb]

I have only been growing the following for a couple of years, so still very green when it comes to working with this genus:

L. laevigatum coastal tea tree - All from seed. The mother trees have since died (suspect the council poisoned them). I just pricked out a bunch of seedlings I started late last year.

L. rotundifolium round-leaved tea tree - Purchased as small tube stock and just letting it grow. Flowered really well last year viewtopic.php?p=283881#p283881

L. sericeum silver tea tree - Purchased as small tube stock and just letting it grow. Repotted this season and has just started pushing new growth including back buds viewtopic.php?p=271462#p271462.

[melbrackstone]

Coastal tea tree does very well at the Redlands Bonsai Society exhibitions each year, so it's obviously a fav in Qld too.

I have L. petersonii which is struggling a little since I root pruned it quite hard, and one called Purple Haze, or Australian Beauty, which didn't have a proper latin name on the label. It's possibly a variety of L. rotundifolium. It has small rounded leaves like the Coastal, and seems to be doing ok. The bark comes off in strips as it grows thicker. viewtopic.php?f=36&t=26710 That's the link to the contest tree. I also have one of the L. scoparium varieties which has survived my bumbling... quite a few others I had have passed on.

[Rory]

I have chosen to restrict my further growing of Leptos to only the following 4, because after years of trialling so many, I found these 4 varieties to be the best overall for aesthetic beauty and reasonable adaption to bonsai life:

Leptospermum lanigerum x : (mainly for both foliage and trunk) : Probably one of the most beautiful and all-round best choices of Lepto for a bonsai. The foliage is simply adorable and very unique. They appear hardy and tolerate heavy and light mixes. The bark is another feature of this tree.

Leptospermum laevigatum 'foreshore' (mainly for the trunk) .... which is a compact version of laevigatum. It has much smaller internodes and the foliage stays smaller too. An excellent choice if you want a smaller version of laevigatum.

Leptospermum scoparium (burgundy queen & red cascade) (mainly for the flowers) : They are beautiful in flower, and have very small leaves so they make excellent bonsai if they survive your initial root separation, provided you don't work the roots hard.

Leptospermum brachyandrum: (mainly for the coloured trunk) : A gorgeous tree with weeping branches. Leaves are thin and about 4 - 5 cm long. Very hardy and tolerates all conditions well. But the feature of this is the beautiful exposed colours of the trunk, and the lighter green colour foliage.

[Ryceman3]

I wouldn't say I am an avid Lepto grower, or that experienced. But the ones I have and are developing in a reasonable manner are :
L. Laevigatum ... the perennial fav.
L. Continentale ... prickly tea tree. I like it, there's a semi cascade thread of my one on the forum. It's a decent grower, nice bark from an early age.
L. Lanigerum (or possibly something else) ... this grows like stink and will bud back quite well when pruned... I usually leave green below. Mine is only very young (under 5 years) so I can't say if this remains true for more mature stock.
L. Petersonii ... Lemon Scented Tea Tree. I have noticed good development in this last couple of years on this one ... again, it is only young stock but it has thickened up and grown plenty of branching, also seems to bounce back after a decent prune. I haven't experienced any issues with repots/root reduction (I have just recently done it for the second time but it looks pretty good a week or so later)

That's about it for me ...

[greg27]

L. polygalifolium seems like a winner for me. The one I have was bought as tubestock only a year and a bit ago, but it seems to grow quick and tolerates root pruning well. I also have a lanigerum x (bonus points if anyone has info about the "x" - my understanding is this indicates it's a hybrid, but what's the other species?) and a petersonii which seem happy.

[Grant Bowie]

Lepto lanigerum looks like a winner as well; great flaky bark and small leaf. There is one at the NBPCA by Will Fletcher from Tasmania and it is doing very nicely.

Thanks for all entries so far, good to know what’s growing out there.

CJ Leo was doing fabulous things in WA with L scoparium. Every time i touched one in the past ; it died quickly.

Grant

[Ryceman3]

I also have a lanigerum x (bonus points if anyone has info about the "x" - my understanding is this indicates it's a hybrid, but what's the other species?)

If what Sno just posted as an ID for me in a different thread, it seems it could be L.Grandifolium as the other species. If it is, you’re on a winner... lots to like as bonsai potential from my experience.

[Watto]

This is a good thread for someone like me who is trying to learn.
One thing I would say from my limited experience is that I shied away from tea tree for many years because of their so called reputation for being difficult when root work was done. With the small ones I have that doesn't appear to be the case so its onward for me.

[Rory]

This is a good thread for someone like me who is trying to learn.
One thing I would say from my limited experience is that I shied away from tea tree for many years because of their so called reputation for being difficult when root work was done. With the small ones I have that doesn't appear to be the case so its onward for me.

Yeah same here Watto. My earlier trials of Lepto in the early 2000s were never very successful, but mainly because I used to attack the roots and branch/foliage all in the one go. And I was of the opinion that you should go hard on the material, otherwise it will eventually die further down the track anyway. I was wrong.

My initial repotting of any Lepto is now to wait till the strong growing months when the weather is on average 26 degrees during the days and just separate the roots, and leave the foliage/branches alone. A year later I gradually reduce the roots at each sequential repot, but never a big reduction on branches at the same time. That philosophy of attacking branches and roots is perhaps best left for northern hemisphere and/or hardy weed-like material that naturally loses its leaves in Autumn in my opinion.
I always remove the flower buds if I've repotted now, as I have had great success making sure you don't allow flower buds to form if you've repotted within the last 4 weeks.
And definitely take your time wetting the roots to 'ease' them apart and not use the force of a sprayer to remove the soil, because Lepto roots are quite prone to having their outer coat stripped by a strong water jet. This nearly always ended up in die-back at the next repot when I've seen the damage it did to the root system. Their roots are just not tolerant of a strong water jet. Banksia and Casuarina and Mel can usually tolerate stripping from a strong water jet, but definitely not with Leptos.

And make sure you trunk chop low early on. Some Leptos are really good at back budding, while others are a bit more prone to die-back. So choose your material well and try to keep as much branching on the material down low as possible, because inevitably as you develop the stock, you'll change your mind on the direction and wish you'd kept certain branches below etc etc.

The excellent characteristic of Leptos is that they are not very susceptible to heavy bulging from multiple bar-branching. But even if they do, it is very easy to correct this on back-budding material. For instance, if you have 3 branches forming at the same point, it often heavily develops the trunk below this point to compensate, as opposed to most other native genus which will just bulge heavily at this junction.

Webbing caterpillars are the most dangerous to young growth, because if you leave them for a few weeks without noticing, they can cause die-back on entire structures of the branching as they eat all around the branch. And they're easy to remove, just pull the whole webbing area off and get rid of it. Another reason to not have too much stock so you can better manage your trees.

Leptospermum obovatum is another excellent choice for Bonsai. Hardy and small, cute foliage. I loved these, but I just had too much material and decided to concentrate on my main 4 species.

Leptospermum scoparium 'pink cascade' is the most hardy of the scopariums, but also the most boring in my opinion. I didn't like the plane-jane pink of the new growth or the flowers, as opposed to the nice darker new growth colours of other scopariums. But 'pink cascade' is very hardy with root reduction.

Leptospermum rotundifolium has unique and adorable foliage. It was quite hardy, and appears to tolerate bonsai life very well. The relatively large flowers turned me off them however.

[MJL]

Very interesting .... I kill lepto’s more than any tree. My lack of patience and ineptitude on full display. I will try the more gradual approach noted by Rory and others from now on!


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[GavinG]

Photos please, ladies and gentlemen! A list of names is not much use without seeing what they do, and what they look like.

My Leptos are all developing, except one, but here goes:

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Leptospermum obovatum, local to Canberra, and grows well. Barks and thickens relatively easily, tough in general, good fine detail. This one might get into a bonsai pot next season - that's the time when they die, for me, but I have been cutting both ends hard at the same time. I'm hopeful for better results if I take much less off the top when I repot.

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Another L. obavatum. They can take very interesting trunk shapes if you prune with that in mind.

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L. brachyandrum "Silver". Lovely peeling bark, interesting roots and pale green-silver leaves, but it's not doing what I want, at least at the moment.

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L. grandifolium. It's making interesting shapes, but it's slow to thicken and fill in. Or maybe I'm impatient. Good grey-green leaves, much like L. lanigerum - also very good.

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L. rotundifolium. Also interesting, but slow to thicken and fill.

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L. horizontalis, an older tree from another grower. Strong grower, but very straight and hard to shape. The trunk makes up for it.

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My only mature Lepto, "Mesmer Eyes", bought as something big and reduced over a number of years. I strip leaves off branches to stop it getting too thick and blobby. Great bark, blue-grey leaves with scarlet new tips, and thickens quite quickly. You need to get trunk shape in early. The flowers, like a number of Leptos, can be large and gaudy.

Root-pruning is reputed to be touchy, but I've found keeping them in a water bath after repotting helps a lot.

I think we could be a lot more imaginative with our trunk shapes, and Leptos give a lot of opportunities.

Gavin

[GavinG]

I don't understand why the last image duplicated - it's not there when I try to edit...

G

[Grant Bowie]

Thanks Gavin,

You certainly have some interesting, twisted Leptos there.I’m sure if you root prune hard but leave more foliage you will have better results. Good to start from very young stock to get the best trunk shapes and sort out the roots early,

Cheers,

Grant