Some branches are 2.5cm and some are up to 5cm, the longer nodes usually on the apical growth. I think it’s controllable depending on how long you let it run riot before pinching the growing tips. I’ve not had a eucalyptus before but from what I’ve been told you can’t just chop and grow like a deciduous tree, so I’ve been careful to chop at the right time and not too often, and not allowing any particular branch to become too dominant when there are weaker ones I want to encourage. That is the reason I cut all the branches back to the first node, rather than just some of them. I’m not sure it’s the right way to do things, but it’s working so far.
i know its not an Australian Eucalypt, but its technically still a eucalypt...
anyway, I was just browsing the forum and came across this thread - any updates on this one beano?
looked like it was powering along up until last posts......
would love to see where its at nowadays
My natives are flourishing (gums, swamp paperbarks, moonah and kunzea*) but I am 'packing death' (80's term) about cutting the roots for the first time! I think I'm supposed to do it next summer... Regardless - I'll be interested to see what the roots looks like - they are basically water plants; pots in an inch of water and drinking like fish! They are group plantings but I am staggered at the water take up.
*Not sure that Kunzea is Australian - I read various rticel about it being a NZ native... perhaps their the Crowded House of bonsai and we just 'em as Australian!
Don't be anxious about root-pruning natives - they're mostly fine. In my experience, Acacias and Grevilleas require care, the rest are tough. I root-prune late September - early October around here - some folk attack when they see buds swelling, others when they see full growth, and everyone swears by their own method. Eucalypts - definitely leave them until November/December, when the heat hits. They have a Mind of Their Own, and Do Not Listen To Reason or Rules. Damn fine trees. I prune hard when I root-prune, and things survive (mostly - not Grevilleas) but others have others' ideas.
They are just trees - the timing may be a bit different from the Foreign Trees, but the treatment's pretty much the same.
(I may start to call them Our Trees and Foreign Trees from now on - not to be jingoistic, but just to rebalance the debate. We shouldn't be more comfortable growing trees from everywhere else but here, but we are.)
End of sermon for today. And yes, I'm self-isolatingly grumpy.
Oh yes, "Kunzea ericoides" is a NZ bush, but what is sold here as K. ericoides is apparently K. phyllicoides - definitely Ours. Rock on!
thanks Rory, your comment made my day. But who would cut down such a beautifull thing
Rory wrote: ↑May 12th, 2014, 12:55 pm
I've been told when they are felled, little fairies fly out of them too.
Would be a great gift for a young child to get them into bonsai. Though I can't imagine the bark getting that colour from an early age. It would be awesome if it did.