Chojubai info request

[Daluke]

They are strange things.

Is the bark green?

Bark is grey, always has been grey for me.

Should I do a fingernail scratch to check if green underneath?

Sorry I meant scratch test

[SuperBonSaiyan]

Sorry I meant scratch test

It was brown ...

The wood on the inside was white, but the cambium and phloem layer were definitely brown.

Guess it's dead? Probably repotted too early or let it dry out too much.

[KIRKY]

Sounds like it All of mine have leafed out.
Cheers
Kirky

[Daluke]

Sounds like it.

What kind of mix is it in? I’ve noted that at least in my climate they like smaller particles and prefer being on the wetter side. My stuff is small - maybe treeman can weigh in?

[SuperBonSaiyan]

Pumice pine and scoria.

There was a period where I neglected to water this plant. I thought they were more dry tolerant through the winter. At least I listened a valuable lesson.

Luckily enough, I dug under the soil today and there's a little sucker growing from the roots with tiny swelling buds.

If it survives I'll name it Phoenix.

[SuperBonSaiyan]

I put some in the grow beds last year and they have certainly grown faster than the ones in pots (which would not be hard - very slow for me here) Time will tell whether ground growing is viable.

Hey Neil, how are your chojubai from the grow beds doing?

Have you dug any up and have you noticed a good amount of thickening / growth compared to pot grown ones? How do they do with transplanting from ground back into pot?

[shibui]

Dug 2 last winter.
Trunk thickening is appreciable but double very thin is still not huge. Still less than finger thick
Both those had no problem going back into pots.

Trial with n=2 is not definitive but something to go on with.
should be a couple more to dig this winter.

[SuperBonSaiyan]

Dug 2 last winter.
Trunk thickening is appreciable but double very thin is still not huge. Still less than finger thick
Both those had no problem going back into pots.

Trial with n=2 is not definitive but something to go on with.
should be a couple more to dig this winter.

That's encouraging to hear. Any acceleration is good, but everything good takes time.

Did they send out more offshoots in the ground and do you cut those off? It would be great if the plant becomes strong enough in the ground to support multiple offshoots and main.

[shibui]

They certainly do send out suckers while in the ground. In 4 years a single plant now covers nearly 1 m with a tangled, prickly mass of thin stems.
I have not tried removing suckers to see if that puts more growth into a single stem - something for future trials. Maybe someone else can take that on. I'm trying to wind down so looking to reduce trees and trials rather than take on more.

[SuperBonSaiyan]

They certainly do send out suckers while in the ground. In 4 years a single plant now covers nearly 1 m with a tangled, prickly mass of thin stems.
I have not tried removing suckers to see if that puts more growth into a single stem - something for future trials. Maybe someone else can take that on. I'm trying to wind down so looking to reduce trees and trials rather than take on more.

If you're looking for someone to take over the Chojubai trial I'd be happy to put my hand up for that. Just repotted mine yesterday and potted up a few of the suckers that I removed. One sucker had a large mass of roots behind it (about 1/4 of the total root ball), so I can understand how that might reduce the growth rate of the main plant.

[SuperBonSaiyan]

Looked into how to ramify Chojubai and found this article: https://crataegus.com/2018/08/31/how-to ... -chojubai/, which states:

Each species has its own ramification technique. For a Chojubai the technique is trimming back the extended shoot about the time it’s hardening off in late spring / early summer. Leave about 1/3″ / 0.5 cm of the shoot, which will have several buds. From that area 1-3 shoots might arise, but usually just one. But back budding can occur as well. If you do this early enough, in June, you might also get a summer trim in, late July, and then a third and final trim in the fall which won’t create regrowth.

Since our hemispheres are reversed, I assume now (November in Melbourne) would be a good time to do the first round of trimming, follows by another in December (June + 6?)

Not sure what the reasoning for the fall trim is if it doesn't create regrowth - can anyone with better horticultural knowledge please chime in if you know?

One more question - when creating cuttings, how many leaves should I leave on? All of them or reduce down to around 2?

[TimS]

I've rooted cuttings of 5-10cm length with ease, no sure how many leaves but probably 10-20+, and i've also had success this year with root cuttings as well in late winter.

The cuttings of the red have always defoliated completely for me after sticking them, hold out and 3-4 weeks later new shoots will emerge from what looks like dead cuttings.

I'm not convinced yet on if it's worth growing chojubai anymore tbh. I have 1 in the ground doing nothing much, one in a small pot that looks dead and the 2 root cuttings now. I'm finding them to be more trouble than they are worth in terms of what you can realistically develop from them in any kind of timeframe even in the ground.

[SuperBonSaiyan]

My goals with chojubai have changed slightly. I'm no longer aiming for a thick trunk - aiming for dense twiggy ramification instead. So I'll cut it back as often as I can (seems like 3 times a year according to Michael Hagedorn), and see where that leads.

I have the same thing happen with cuttings (leaves falling off). At the moment I'm watering two small pots of twigs hoping they'll push buds soon

[TimS]

Yep I’ve never had a cutting of red that hasn’t completely defoliated so don’t give up on them. One day you come out and there are green shoots on them again

Chojubai as a small accent plant would work great, but I’m not bothering trying to make specimen trees from them anymore