AusBonsai

At the School of Bonsai show I performed my first Demo and the topic was repotting a tree. I decided to show how to to pot up a collected tree into it first Bonsai Pot and my preferred specimen was the Azalea in this thread viewtopic.php?f=132&t=9913 .
I was not sure if that one would fit in the pot well enough, so took another tree as a backup just in case.

This Bougie was in the garden when I purchased my new house, and like most was growing wildly. As it has long thorns was not really the thing to have around you kids playing in the yard so out it came. As such I thought it might make a nice larger sized specimen Bonsai.

I Dug it out in March 2010 but as Bougies are Fast growers, reckoned it was OK to repot now
Unfortunately I have not got a photo of it in flower, but from memory is has pale pink Brachts

Enjoy the series
Ken

The tree has been growing rampantly and is time to put into a nice Bonsai pot.
Several reasons for this,
It will look nicer on my benches
Hopefully being constrained into a Pot will low its growth down somewhat to allow Smaller leaves to develop and require less trimming, As Bougies flower on the ends of the new growth, you need to reduce the trimming to get them to flower

Enjoy
Ken

Love to this updated plz ken. :_

Tis dark now! but if you went to the Castle Hill show you would have seen it in the bark
It will also be in the Easter Show.
Not real show quality yet, but still impressive display what can be achieved in a short time, and those that saw the Potting Demo I did with it will be surprised at the development since then

I have Trimmed back the leggy growth regularly, and the last trim was a fortnight ago in Prep for the Easter show in a few weeks
I have wired all the branches down so they make flat pads for foliage and flowers, rather than pointing to the Sky. The wire will come off before the easter show and I will tip prune as soon as the new growth starts to elongate excessively. I will encourage the tight foliage Bougies can obtain.

I took and updated pic last weekend actually

I really want to develop the bottom left branch over the next year or 2 to give something there. The foliage wil develop in that time to provide a nice canopy, and hopefully give lots of flowers too

Ken

Great progression man I recently collected 2 bougies n seeing ur progression I will post mine up also n I like what I did with the material I always have a hard time with multi trunk material I collect I might look towards ur pics as inspiration to how to style similar Yamadori that I collect in future

One question is it the pink variety royal purple or red for some weird reason I can never find a pink or purple I collected 5 bougies n it pains me that they are all red hahah maybe a trade one day with someone hahah

H tree
I have not seen it flower yet ( cannot remeber before it was dug) but suspect it is one of the old Pink varieties.
Glad that my progression helps

Ken

Treecollecter wrote:Great progression man I recently collected 2 bougies n seeing ur progression I will post mine up also n I like what I did with the material I always have a hard time with multi trunk material I collect I might look towards ur pics as inspiration to how to style similar Yamadori that I collect in future

One question is it the pink variety royal purple or red for some weird reason I can never find a pink or purple I collected 5 bougies n it pains me that they are all red hahah maybe a trade one day with someone hahah

How old are the trunks? Willing to part with a red?

Hi kc , mate it certainly is progressing nicely .I like the Bougy's as bonsai and plan to purchase a few more .Mine need a good work over but time is not something i have on my side . I need to get about 30 - 20 years old Azalia's out of the ground and into pots . A mans work is never done .

Cheers Alpine

I like it Ken and i am always a little envious of good looking bougies like this. They do not do well here at all and it is not for lack of trying. If i was to make a comment.. are you considering removing the higher, smaller roots in the front I think they take away from the impressive base.

Hi Bodhi
I have removed one from the back, but now see the ones you mean after you mention them funny that eh! Looked at it so many times and only when someone mentiones them do the become apparent

At the next repot, I will definitely look closely to see if they can be removed without creating a big hole in the roots or trunk : Thanks

Ken

Very nice would love to have one of these as i like the flower they have how tall is this tree ?

Sorry Olive did not see the request.
The tree is about 450mm from the pot so quite small

Ken

kcpoole wrote:Sorry Olive did not see the request.
The tree is about 450mm from the pot so quite small

Ken

Im surprised of the size it looked much bigger cant wait to see it in flower do you know what color the flowers are

I have no idea really olive. It flowered in the ground once, but not since I dug out and potted up. For the life of me I cannot remember what colour it was.
Last year was recovering in the bonsai pot. Hope this year will flower so I will certainly update this thread when it does

Ken

Time for an update after I trimmed this one back yesterday.
Cut back all the new shoots going the wrong direction, coming from the wrong spot. and those are too long and straight.
I will repot in a few more weeks once the last vestiges of cold weather depart Sydney,

Last year it actually flowered but with only 1 clump of brachts, and yep they are a pale pink
Also note that this is (in sydney) a deciduous variety and late every winter lose all its leaves to reveal the structure. They ramifly really well and it looks quite nice when Nekkid

Ken