more twisty shimpaku

[shibui]

A couple of pots of cuttings have roots showing so it is time to pot them up.

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The cuttings were chosen because they are long and skinny. The reason will become apparent.

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Gently tap the whole lot out of the pot and carefully shake the propagating mix off the roots. New roots are quite brittle so care is required at this stage but propagating mix usually falls away easily.

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About half have roots so far. The white blobs at the base of the centre ones is callus. It usually indicates that roots will emerge soon. All the ones without roots will go back into fresh propagating mix and back on the cutting table. I usually get more rooted in another month or so.

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I have found it is easier to wire these while they are bare rooted. I can also get better bends closer to the base of the trunk too so I wire the trunks before I pot these up. Having the roots exposed means I can wire right down to the roots without damaging the tender roots with the wire. Some care is needed here to make sure the wire bends round the trunk rather than the other way.

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Then bend and twist it into interesting shapes. Try to make bends look natural so random directions and distances rather than the regular corkscrew so many mass produced junipers seem to have. Relatively close turns of the wire allows tighter bends with less chance of breaking the stems. Even with care one of these snapped today but it may still survive.

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Now pot up, water as usual then put them aside to grow. Keep an eye on the wires and remove as soon as it looks like the wires are constricting the bark. That's usually a couple of months over summer.

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Completed!
Note that I got bored with wiring so I just potted up the ones with fewer roots without wiring the trunks. They can be sold as is or wired and bent later if they survive the transplant.

[kcpoole]

Well done shibui,
Will they be grown in pots or planted out in the griund later?

Ken

[shibui]

At this stage I don't know what the future holds. Nothing will happen until the trunks set and the wires come off, probably at the end of summer.
Some will then be sold as small twisted shimpaku.
Some will be potted on as they grow and raised in pots. The trunks are only 5-10 cm tall at the moment. As the trunks extend they will be wired again to give more similar trunk. Any branches that extend will also be wired and bent to match the trunks.
Any that go in the ground really need more trunk than these tiny ones. Not much point having a 10cm tall trunk with lots of straight bits growing from it so the ones that are planted out are generally those that have had several rounds of wiring.

Growing shimpaku like this is a very long process.

[jessepap]

Very interesting seeing these so small and what they may become. Thanks for sharing.