Lilly Pilly

[matlea]

Hi all just thought I'd post this Lilly Pilly... Using phone... Thanks aus bonsai! Height is about 50cm
Have only wired down some branches and given it a trim... Had to trim it as it was infested in mites... First time I've had to deal with these!, gave it a spray and seems to be under control now!
Come spring am thinking of chopping the upper thicker branches to start to get some taper at these upper locations and introduce finer branching.... Also want to bend (slowly) the lower branch. Anyhow all comments welcome!!

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[Craig]

looks good so far, it has a very natural feel about it,i like pic 2, good work

[Chad]

Bit of work and that will come up great. Good starting point, like to see how it ends up

[Mojo Moyogi]

Hi There matlea, thats not a bad trunk for nursery stock. The lower branch is straight and a bit too heavy for the trunk now, in a couple of years, supposing you are able to lower it and create any sort of foliage pad, it will only be thicker again. Lilly-Pilly will backbud where branches are removed, my advice is to work with the trees trunk and create an interesting trunk line that is in good proportions to the eventual height of the tree and grow some better branches from scratch. My gut feeling on the best time to heavy prune as I have described would be in the warmer months when the tree is growing strongly, by late spring/early summer you would also have been able to have a look at the available roots to help with making a decision on possible fronts for the tree. I'm sure the others that grow more "pillies" than I do would be able to expand on this.

Cheers,
Mojo

[matlea]

Thanks for all the feedback. I would definately like to lower the bottom branch and maybe bend the straight section. Just have to take the bending slowly I think. Will also cut it back at the top and get some finer branching. The aim is to repot early... One so that i can work out what's going on under the soil and... Two to let it recover so come spring I can feed.. Feed ... Feed! I'll do some updates once repotted.

[matlea]

Well I got around to repotting this one.... Had to do it while I had a chance!! Fingers were crossed as to what lay below the soil line... Thankfully the roots were pretty good!! Will let it settle and get stuck into it come spring time. I hope this guy fruits at some time in its future... Hmm

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[matlea]

Thought I'd update this one.
This tree has been through a lot...almost ended up dead not long after the last post. Got hit by 40+deg heat wave when I was away and the person that was watering it didn't give it enough. Had no green leaves left on it. I ended up misting with seasol for a couple of months and it just pulled through... Although it did suffer some die back.

Here it is as of today... Still very messy and just structural wiring at the moment. I have also tried an approach graft to place a branch or two where the trunk died back.... Appears to be going ok. (Branch used is from bottom right side)
One good sign is that it is flowering. Some of these I have removed, some I have left on to see if I get any fruit to determine what they look like... Fingers crossed.

Hopefully this one will get better with age...Well providing I don't have a repeat of a couple of years ago!!

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Graft

[matlea]

Need to work on the right foliage pad (grafted branch) and the top but it's heading in the right direction... I think....

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[Boics]

Some great looking bones here.
I'd like to see the tree reach a bit higher with some added interest / complexity.
I think this will offset concerns regarding the lower branch.

I reckong Lilly Pilly are great material - this is no exception!
Mine is just about to flower right now

[matlea]

Thanks Boics, yes intend to give it some extra height for the final design which will add a few more foliage pads... And yes they make good material and are reasonably quick growers. I have two more which are under development.

[Steve B]

Taking shape nicely mattlea! I think thick foliage pads are the go for lilly pillys - reflects how they seem to grow in the wild. On mine I've been angling for a full crown and thick foliage pads with some negative space/definition to set them off rather than pushing for much complexity on the trunk or branching.

What's your experience in getting them to ramify? Do you let the new shoots run full length and then harden off before cutting back to one or two leaf sets? I have had mixed results in cutting them back before the harden off. I originally thought I could get a shorter internode by trimming the new shoots when they first appeared (as per maples). What tended to happen was they would either die off or produce only a single new shoot rather then the two (or more) shoots I was looking for. Means that I have struggled to control the internode lengths and get nice delicate ramification. Seems to produce shorter internodes when the tree is shooting everywhere as the energy is probably getting distributed uniformly across all the growing tips. A couple of shooting cycles each year seem to be more concentrated in just a couple of spots and these are the ones that can have the longer internodes. I usually end up cutting these right back and hope to get a better set of new growth in the next flush.

[matlea]

Yes the new shoots do like to extend quickly, although I have two that are a different variety that seems to remain in check a bit better.
Up until this season I have been letting grow and then cutting back as I was trying to maintain strong growth for the main structure. This season I have tried to pinch very early, like you had tried. So far so good and haven't had any issues, but I have kept them to morning sun only as I have had issues with extreme heat and hot afternoon sun.

Have you had any issues with branches that have wire left on dying? None had drastic bends put in but on two of the plants the branches that were wired died while the other unwired branches kept powering along?.... Not sure if it was the wire, the bending or the wire heating up in the sun or something else?

[Steve B]

How are you finding the number of shoots you get from the terminal leaves after you pinch early? Are you getting shoots from each of the last 2 (or 4) sets of leaves or just a single shoot? Morning sun could be a good angle on this as I had mine in full sun. It could have put newly pinched shoots under more pressure than they could handle. Might need to do a bit of experimenting with your technique matt....

I havent used wire on lilly pilly's to be honest. I tend to tie branches down with guy wire/twine to get them in the right direction (particularly as the natural tendency seems to be reach for the stars as soon as they start to harden off) and then whack them with clip and grow to get more extreme movement/taper once they've set.

I have had some unusual/unexplained branch dieback events, though without wire involved. I had put it down to a combination of overshadowing and/or trimming back lower, less apically dominant branches when a more vigorous branch was in the vicinity. This was me trying to ramify what I thought were "ready to go" lower branches while still letting a couple of sacrifice branches higher up the tree run riot and shade the lower branches out. One of those things that could have been related to a lot of different events - great for creating our very own urban myths and weird superstitions about what makes bonsais grow

[matlea]

I'll have to wait for the next flush of growth to confirm if single or double shoots.

Branch die back is very frustrating.... Might limit the amount of wire on the tree and the time left on the branch and see how that goes.