Eucalyptus Gavingii

[Rory]

Eucalyptus GavinGii

This lovely base was gifted to me by GavinG on a trip to Canberra in 2020....hence the scientific name.
GavinG has many beautiful Eucalyptus trees in his collection.
I finally got around to repotting it today.
I do love it, but all the local pests absolutely love it too. I have to continually spray it once a month or so.

Euc G 1-01 15Jan2021.jpg

15Jan2021

Euc G 1-02 18Jan2023.jpg

18Jan2023

[Rory]

Euc G 1-03 03Nov2023.jpg.jpg

03Nov2023

I have the bonsai pot ready for this one. But I had recently trunk chop to get more growth down low. I would be an idiot to put it into a bonsai pot right now. Patience.
I am very happy, as it has produced buds all over the area I want to start the new leader from.
You have to be careful trunk chopping Eucs, as you can sometimes get unwanted dieback going down a lot further than you anticipated, which is why I cut much higher.

[GavinG]

I must have been mad to give it to you... It has a nice base, certainly - I've always found the next step of developing credible branch structure difficult. Can't help on the species... Have you compared it to E. punctata in your area? Does it shed its bark around now?

Have fun!

Gavin

[Rory]

I must have been mad to give it to you... It has a nice base, certainly - I've always found the next step of developing credible branch structure difficult. Can't help on the species... Have you compared it to E. punctata in your area? Does it shed its bark around now?

Have fun!

Gavin

Hi Gavin,

I hope you and the wife are going well. Long time no see. You need to come up here and visit me.

It definitely doesn’t resemble E. Punctata no. I have no idea what species it is, but wow. It’s definitely the best Eucalyptus I’ve ever grown whatever it is. It reduces the leaves really easily. It’s incredibly hardy, for both drought and severe root reduction.
Now that I have full sun, the internodes are very short and it will be perfect for bonsai life.

When you gave it to me at the Native plant symposium, it didn’t look anything like this though. It had a few straggly roots at the base. I had planted it deeper than its soil line at the time to encourage more roots, which proved excellent with a mass of roots developing. It’s certainly a stupid wives tale that you can’t plant Eucs below the current line, or if it has a lignotuber. I’ve done this on countless Eucs without a problem.

I wish I had more of this Eucalytpus species. Now that I have full sun and the way I style my trees, (allow them to grow a lot and tell me which way they want to be styled)…. It means most of my trees will hopefully flower and I might be able to get an ID on it.
Yes, it’s almost finished shedding its bark now. It sent out new shoots so quickly after the trunk chop. (I think it was only about 10 - 12 days)
This and a E. olidia are definitely my favourite Eucs.
I am very grateful you gave this to me.
It certainly had your characteristic trademark hunchback/bent over start to its development that your Eucs are well known for, when you gave it to me. I do often laugh when I’m working on this, thinking about what dry, sarcastic comment you’d say to me as I’m working it.

p.s I have Grant to thank for my large Bankisa collection, but by far, the most number of genus I have is now Eucalyptus.
Without any possums, and full sun for fast growth to dismiss Myrtle rust, I have more Eucalyptus now than any other genus, and I have you to thank for that, with your awesome trees that made me want to give them another serious attempt. I’ll try to get more of my progressions updated for those: nicholii, costata, olidia (amazing), citriodora (wow, the scent, it’s out of this world), melliodora, cladocalyx nana, virudius dwarf, wimmerensis, polyanthomos, crebra and roseacea

[Rory]

So I believe you are right Gavin. This is highly likely to be E. punctata. I have compared the bark to Eucalyptus punctata and it seems identical.
So whatever I was experimenting before with, was most likely not punctata - as the bark on those was deep spongey and fibrous-like on those trees I was working on many years ago.

This is a beautiful tree. It easily reduces its foliage size, but its the colours on the trunk that are so spectacular, especially after a watering.
I mistakenly allowed a massive clump of growth to go unchecked around the middle there, so will cut back hard to one of those young shoots later in time. Its hard to see in this angle, but it has really really bad reverse taper, that it is very distracting visually.

I have heavily reduced my collection again and am now down to 17 trees. It gets harder as you get older to reduce the number, but it allows for more concentrated time on your favourite trees.

This will be my biggest bonsai. Euc bonsai always look better and more realistic as bigger trees, usually because of the leaf size. This one has been placed into a Sara Rayner pot.

Euc G 1-04 12Dec2024.jpg

12Dec2024