Grevillea robusta forest

[MattA]

Wandering round a local nursery I came across this lot of 11 robusta. A rather & sorry crew I just had to have them

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I have snapped out most of the deadwood leaving potential jin tho I have never seen any on wild trees, shari yes, jin no. They range from 60-100cm tall & leaves range from 5-20cm in length & most of the pots are only a half full ball of roots with all of the potting mix having been washed out & broken down over the years. All have varying amounts of lichen (this does grow faster in cultivation than the wild but still takes a while). The bark has only just started to crack in a few lines (this is slowed by lack of growth) but roughly 5-10yrs would be a good guess on age. More is not impossible given the incredibly slow growth rates of some I have seen in the ground.

I want to make a forest from them but would like to hear how others would proceed.
Pot them all up seperately for a year or 2 to get some strength back without competion them assemble the forest?
or
Plant them all together in the crate pictured?

Matt

Edit: spelling

[Roger]

What a challenge you are setting for yourself. Growing these grevilleas shouldn't be a problem - they are very hardy and tolerate pot growing very well.

Getting them to look good may be more difficult. Leaf reduction is possible, but you are setting yourself up for a lot of continued pruning to keept them small. Given the slightest chance to grow big and they will happily rise (elongate) to the challenge

Getting them to produce side branches is possible, but from the little experience I've had, is not in the 'very easy' category. Love to be proven wrong here.

I guess I can think of material better suited to group planting, but then I've never tried it with G robusta.

Good luck and keep us posted.
Roger

[Tony Bebb]

Hi Matt

What Roger says is very true. Challenging for good Bonsai, but possible in cultivation.

If you do want to make a group out of them, I would plant them together now while the root ball is small and govern their growth to achieve the trunk variation you require.

All the best.

Tony

[MattA]

Roger,
Thanks for your input, I love a challenge, part of why I choose these over the similar Mel quinquinerva stock that shared that corner. I also have a love of grevillea & my eye on several more mature specimens (different varieties) in the same nursery... all in good time.

I was thinking of bare rooting & intertwining the rootsystems rather than cutting any overlapping ones, I was going to plant most of them really close together with just the odd one or 2 scattered a bit further out. Most only have one or 2 branches tho all have several dormant brances & eye buds on the trunks. I have an old collected robusta that has backbudded stronger & stronger with each pruning since being collected a few years ago, i am hoping that will translate into this lot.

I am definitely up for the challenge of keeping on top of the growth, its one of the many joys of growing most natives as bonsai, the phenomenal growth rates compared to many exotics.

Tony,
Thanks for answering the planting dilemma I faced. What do you think of my idea for the planting arrangement mentioned above?

Matt

[Roger]

Nothing left but to go for it, Matt.

Managing the interaction between the closeness of the trunks and the size of the leaves will be one of the challenges. Please keep us uptodate from time to time.

All good wishes for learning and success.
Roger

[Tony Bebb]

Tony,
Thanks for answering the planting dilemma I faced. What do you think of my idea for the planting arrangement mentioned above?

Matt[/quote]

Rather than just have the odd 1 or 2 scattered, I would probably go for 3 clusters with 5,3,3 to give a better feel of a forest. 5 would be the main group with the thicker trees with the two 3's both on the side of the direction but staggered for depth. Think of a 3 tree arrangement with each cluster positioned to represent each tree.

Hope that helps.

Tony

[MattA]

Roger,
Get to it I shall, as soon as i get the reorganising done after taking down my summer shade this week.

Tony,
I sort of get what you mean, however there is no real difference in the trunk sizes, the only difference is height. None are straight, with varying amounts of lean. They have spent more than a few years living in a nursery tray squashed together & have grown out to reach the light.

My thought process for putting them close together is they could be positioned to give the illusion of greater thickness an the few further away would highlight there thinness. The ones with the most lean are the tallest & then a couple of the smallest also have pronounced leans, or are side branches become trunks from dieback above. I could maybe go 8 2 1 as an arrangement, with the single tree the furthest away but still under the main canopy.

If your interested I can line them up & take photos so you can see each tree. I should really just for my own record of this forests beginnings.... who knows where it will be in another 20yrs. I have always loved forests but only grown instant Acacia ones in the past. Maybe I should go & get those mel quin's as well.

Matt

[Tony Bebb]

Hey Matt

I don't think the lack of trunk thickness variation will be a dillema as you will be able to let the intended main trees grow to make them thicker while keeping the others pruned to develop branches. This works because the main trees will only need branches up top and when the thickness develops you can prune and get branches up high. The straighter trunks would be better in the middle of the main group and the ones with more movement can be used in the outer ones. Mixing up the numbers will work fine as you desire, but I would avoid having one out all on its own.

Photos in a line would be ok and I am happy to have a look and help if I can. I would focus on arranging them more in order of degrees of movement rather than trunk thickness if they are all very similar.

Tony

[MattA]

The day I finally got to repotting these a friend turned up with their kids. Of course they all wanted to help so i let them arrange & back fill. On the whole I like what they have done, probably better than I would, but... I am not happy with how the trunks interact.. For now they will be left to grow & get some strength back. All have now shot away to varying degrees, time will see what they want to make.

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Matt

[MattA]

These have really kicked on after being defoliated in January. I am considering removing the smallest tree far right & the long slanting tree back left in the first pic.

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Matt

[rayfam5]

hi there I have a G.Robusta single tree though. and its about 10 years old. even had flowers. Leaf reduction is not too hard. I have expermineted with it. But in early spring I cut all the leaves in half. Then never let it dry out. I get lots of new leaves and they are much smaller. G.Robusta does shhoot off from trunks and branches quite indiscrinantely, I remove the ones I dont want. Ill try to take a pic. I did repot this year and recovery was a little slowler than I expected. You can wire them and shape them quite easily. brancjhes are flexible. they tend to grow narrowish and upright so it makes it harder to attain a spread like branching. I have many grevilleas and they ar doing really well. some are in full bloom now.

[Magzy]

Gday mate, i love working with silky oak such a beautiful timber. Nice to see robusta being used in bonsai and good luck with your forest i will watch with interest.
Cheers Mark

[MattA]

They have been growing strongly & had a great fibrous root system right in close to the trunks so I felt comfortable putting the reduced group into this beautiful Mudlark pot.

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Not totally sure I like to 2 trunks on the left but will let them grow out abit & seeif that changes my mind.

Comment & critique always welcomed.

Matt

[GavinG]

They're very gracefully arranged trunks Matt, I'd certainly leave the left ones to balance the mass on the right. Will be good to see it in leaf. How aggressive will you be in trying to reduce the leaf size?

You've certainly made something from nothing much.

Gavin

[bodhidharma]

I think the two trunks on the left should also be left there but moved closer to each other. It will, as Gavin said, be interesting to see if you can get foliage reduction and flowering. I have had one for years and accomplished neither I'll watch this space.