Callistemon - FOR SCIENCE!

[BonsaJas]

Hey all,

I thought I'd share with you some science I was doing about callistemons and their abilty to back bud.

Back at the start of October I stumbled across this tray of callistemons. They weren't in great shape. Pure sticks, root bound, black mold, kinda not looked after at all. Being a sucker for sick plants, I picked up the lot. When I got home, I treated the mold and had a look at the roots. I realised there was no point in saving their heads as none of them would make great bonsai with their current form.

I decided to see whether they were really as good at back budding as everyone says. I cut all the trunks, put them in the semi shade and offered water.



Here's an image of how root bound they are


This is my control Callistemon. It got repotted, got left a whole branch of leaves and once shoots came out, got given some fertilser.
As you can see, it's budding all over the branch that got left alone.


It's also budding on the main trunk. The buds are tiny, so they might be hard to see, but they are there.


This one got left with two leaves on one branch. It kept the leaves, budded like crazy on that branch and is now budding elsewhere.


the ones which just got a pure trunk chop and left with nothing are starting to bounce back with buds close to the cut site.


Only one of the whole lot hasn't put out buds yet. It's the one I used for the root bound photo. I've pulled it out of its pot twice now, so possibly that was a step too far.

I found it interesting the different types of back budding they are all doing depending on what I did to them, espically given the condition they were in when I got them.

They are all still super root bound, so once they have reestablished, repotting is next. It's likely that I'll be repotting out of season as I still need to give them a few weeks to bounce back, but I hear Callistemons can be repotted anytime and they' come good... time for more science I think

[shibui]

Thanks for doing the trial. And for sharing the results here. There's so much we don't know about how many natives respond to bonsai techniques that any trial is good. Trials with a number of individuals is even more valuable as it helps to rule out occasional errors.

In scientific trials it is important to rule out as many extraneous variables as possible. Can I suggest a couple of extra bits of info that will probably take out some variables and help make the trial even more useful for others.

1. Your location. We have October as a starting point for this trial but, for all we know you may even be in the northern hemisphere so October could mean Autumn Even Australia is a big place with very varied climate. Knowing where data was obtained lets us know if October means early Spring with cold nights or Spring with no frost when you did this trial.

2. Species. My trials suggest that not all members of a species react the same way. Some Callistemon species back bud easily but others have resolutely refused to back bud after pruning here.

[Raniformis]

You are not authorised to view this image on my phone.

[legoman_iac]

I'm about to try my first air layer of a Callistemon ... won't be very scientific as I only have the one in a good state to try

Re: back budding ... is interesting!

Find the top, above the soil usually reflects the roots/ the going ons below the surface

[BonsaJas]

…

In scientific trials it is important to rule out as many extraneous variables as possible. Can I suggest a couple of extra bits of info that will probably take out some variables and help make the trial even more useful for others.

1. Your location.

2. Species.

Oops, both of those would be good to know! I’m in Canberra and they are Little Johns.

[BonsaJas]

I'm about to try my first air layer of a Callistemon ... won't be very scientific as I only have the one in a good state to try

Re: back budding ... is interesting!

Find the top, above the soil usually reflects the roots/ the going ons below the surface

Good luck! I haven’t air layered one yet, so will be interested in how long it takes before you can cut it off.

[BonsaJas]

You are not authorised to view this image on my phone.

Odd, not sure what’s going on there

[DaveZ]

All the Callistemons I've played with so far have been great at back budding but I've heard others say they don't have a lot of luck in that regard. I do wonder if climate and maintenance regime have a bit to do with it. A lot of callistemons, well ours locally, grow in or near waterways, so I tend to keep mine on the wetter side, I don't know if that makes the difference or it is totally species specific. What's your watering regime for these trees?

Cheers,
Dave.

[Rory]

I dabbled quite a lot with Callistemon over a decade ago, and they are one of the hardiest natives I tried. Some were hardier than others, but the thing is…. I wouldn’t say it’s super helpful unless you’ve started with material that is healthy. Reporting on a plant with a varying degree of ill health isn’t much help to others for information about their response to bonsai treatment….. just saying.

But Callistemon little john is incredibly hardy and good at back budding if you’re using healthy material. I’d accidentally allowed them to get bone dry, but they eventually would always recover.

[BonsaJas]

What's your watering regime for these trees?

That’s a bit of a tricky one. Cause they are so root bound I can’t stick my finger in to check what’s going on. I’m watering them once or twice a day. Cause I work from home most days my coffee break tends to be a quick wander in the garden to see if anything wants a drink.

[BonsaJas]

I dabbled quite a lot with Callistemon over a decade ago, and they are one of the hardiest natives I tried. Some were hardier than others, but the thing is…. I wouldn’t say it’s super helpful unless you’ve started with material that is healthy. Reporting on a plant with a varying degree of ill health isn’t much help to others for information about their response to bonsai treatment….. just saying.

But Callistemon little john is incredibly hardy and good at back budding if you’re using healthy material. I’d accidentally allowed them to get bone dry, but they eventually would always recover.

I’m pleased to hear you say they are hardy! I kinda think this is backing that up. If plants in this terrible condition will back bud, newer folk might feel a little more secure in dealing with their healthy little Johns

I do agree that I won’t repot til they have recovered from the trunk chop. I’m interested in your thoughts - if you had super root bound that had been trunk chopped what would you look for as the trigger to repot?

[Rory]

I do agree that I won’t repot til they have recovered from the trunk chop. I’m interested in your thoughts - if you had super root bound that had been trunk chopped what would you look for as the trigger to repot?

Firstly, I would not do that again if it was me. When you first acquire the stock, next time, work the roots. Untangle the mess of root, and get all the old mix off and put it into a fresh mix, which will start the tree getting healthy again and you'll know what you're dealing with going forward. At the moment, you have sort of kicked the can down the road and will have to do the big root untangling mess next time. As is, you don't want to do any more work now until they regain health, which means a long time.
This species is very hardy, so thats good. But generally with bonsai treatment, you want to work the roots immediately, and not delay that for the future. Trees that are root bound can have so many issues, and it can further weaken the tree and not allow proper watering, etc etc.

You may find some of the root systems are shockingly bad for bonsai when you get in there and take a good look at the base of the roots. But this is the fun of seeing the material for the first time. Also, if you end up working the roots really hard to seperate them, sometimes no matter how hard we try to be careful, we sometimes lose the material after this, so its better to know sooner than later if this happens, and saves a lot of effort by doing this from day 1.

Good luck.

[melbrackstone]

Agree with Rory here, you really should leave those trees to recover for a min 6 - 8 months before messing with those roots. The thinking with natives is swinging around to leaving the foliage intact and root prune, then (as long as the tree is healthy,) do your top pruning 2 or 3 months later. Mid Summer isn't really the best time here in SE Qld, for hard root pruning, but all through Spring and Autumn works for me.

[shibui]

It is great that we are getting others to add experience to the mix but I believe it is also important to explore new boundaries. There's so little known about how many of our natives respond to different things under different conditions so a range of trials is one way of working out the limits of what can be done, when and under what conditions.
I'd like to encourage as many growers as possible to get hold of cheap and expendable material similar to this trial and try different things with it and post the results - good and bad.
A single event is not usually enough to draw valid conclusions from. To learn the full story we need a range of trials under a range of conditions and that is best done by lots of growers trying different approaches in different places.
There will always be those who fear failure and need to follow the rest of the sheep and that's fine but we also need brave souls to risk failure in order to add to our scant body of knowledge.
If any of you have the means and opportunity to try something new, please do so but make sure you publish the results so we can all learn.

Please keep on with the trials @BonsaJas

[BonsaJas]

Time for an update on this one. The plants were all horribly root bound, so I wanted to repot them. I've also been dealing with star weed in the soil of these ones and am keen for it not to spread to the rest of my plants, so I knew I wanted to bare root them.

First of all, here's an update of the control plant. It was given what I would call the 'normal' route. When I got it it got a repot, bit of root work, and prune. Since then I've been tidying up buds which I didn't want and generally left it alone to do its thing.


this one is the one which has grown the least


Generally, they are all going gangbusters. Like the control, I've been tidying up buds and generally letting them be. apart from regular issues with star weed...


When I started the day, I was thinking about what I wanted to do. I had thoughts around cutting off different amounts of root. But once I started working on them, I uncovered truly how bad the roots were. It was a mess of the poor things trying to strangle themselves. here are some shots mid clean up.


It was clear to see where the original seed pot was, they had very defined edges.

They all ended up with 70% - 80% having to be gotten rid of. Here's where I ended up with most of them. TBH, this was one of the onces in better condition.


I started the day with my delicate kit, towards the end the system was 'pull the plant out of the pot, use the saw to cut off 1/2 of the root ball, then try and see what could be salavged'.

Given they all got the same treatment as far as roots were concerned., I thought it might be interesting to look at aftercare. I had heard that putting plants into a basin of water would provide a better outcome. I split them into two groups, put them both in semi shade and misted them regulary.

The photos below are today, 10 days later. All are still going, with one losing a branch (which might be becuase I knocked it rather than anything else...)

The ones in the water are giving me definiate 'over watered' vibes


but the ones just on my bench are much happier


So today I pulled the water group out of the water and and let them be on my bench.