Three Island Privet

[Mitchell]

Hi all! Great site you have here! Have been reading for a while, so decided to start a series.

Have recently dug this lil guy out of my garden, after a couple of years of preparing it. Decided to go with a three island/pot setup. The pots are made from a sand cement and clay mix which will be later coverd in moss.

I feel this plant has some potential. Any comments and critique are welcomed as im not too sure where it is heading.

[Jamie]

welcome to the forum dragon

im not quite sure where you are headed with this little privet, do you plan on using the roots to jump from one pot to the next and get it to grow suckers up?
i havent seen it done before but anyway, it will be interesting to see where you go with it

keep us updated


jamie

[craigw60]

Hi Dragon,
Check out a style called turtle back where several trunks are grown from a large slab at the base. Also cut your trees really low privets grow very strongly so if you cut them way down you will be able to grow them up with a nice taper. You will eventually have to cut off some of those big straight roots but maybe wait until the tree as recovered from the dig. Privet is very forgiving you should easily get them going.
Craig

[AnneK]

[quote="Jamie"]welcome to the forum dragon

im not quite sure where you are headed with this little privet, do you plan on using the roots to jump from one pot to the next and get it to grow suckers up?
i havent seen it done before but anyway, it will be interesting to see where you go with it

Hi Dragon,
Me too! Can't see the daisy chain being the regular route. Consider the front being reversed and remove the thick guy currently on the right. Retaining the skinny one, consider removing all or some of the skinny ones now in the front. Then reduce down as others have suggested. Now with a variety of trunk sizes, build up your taper and selective branches as you go.

AnneK

[MelaQuin]

I think you are creating problems for yourself. While the idea is interesting in theory I think further down the track you will probably revise it.
1) How are you going to repot each pot if the pots are root connected? Not easy to lift one plant and work on it with the others dangling down the line.
2) The roots in the major pot and not really attractive. Whatever you do in designing the foliage you are not going to be able to visually counteract the impact of the intestinal loop of roots.
3) Privets are fantastical rooters... in Sydney they really need serious root pruning three to four times a year. Where is the room for the roots to grow in those pots?
4) How do you transport/move these Islands? Even moving from the bench to the potting area would be a study in logistics, particularly when the foliage starts to develop.
5) With there seeming to be so little area for soil I presume the Three Islands will have to sit in a water tray. How easy will it be to get them out when there is a rainy spell?
I could imagine a Three Island setup if each pot is identical except for size and each pot is fully self contained but to have them interconnected is buying trouble before the trees even start growing. Maybe you need to have another look at this conception and look forward to see it in one or two years time.

[Mitchell]

Hi Dragon,
Check out a style called turtle back where several trunks are grown from a large slab at the base. Also cut your trees really low privets grow very strongly so if you cut them way down you will be able to grow them up with a nice taper. You will eventually have to cut off some of those big straight roots but maybe wait until the tree as recovered from the dig. Privet is very forgiving you should easily get them going.
Craig

Thanks for your comment. There is only one straight root left, jumping to the first island. There is secondary Nebari at the rear of the plant in the first island.

[Mitchell]

welcome to the forum dragon

im not quite sure where you are headed with this little privet, do you plan on using the roots to jump from one pot to the next and get it to grow suckers up?
i havent seen it done before but anyway, it will be interesting to see where you go with it

keep us updated


jamie

HI Jamie! Thanks for your quick reply. Yes I intend on jumping from pot to pot, developing the root structures and hopefully attaining small suckers decreased in height on the second pot then increased slightly more on the end pot. The middle pot maybe removed in the future to leave just the two, yet I need more soil medium to get to the roots to recover at the moment, hence the middle bridging rock.

Just a bit of an experiment, I have a two rock setup on a fig at the moment, and the jumped roots look awesome.

[Mitchell]

I think you are creating problems for yourself. While the idea is interesting in theory I think further down the track you will probably revise it.
1) How are you going to repot each pot if the pots are root connected? Not easy to lift one plant and work on it with the others dangling down the line.
2) The roots in the major pot and not really attractive. Whatever you do in designing the foliage you are not going to be able to visually counteract the impact of the intestinal loop of roots.
3) Privets are fantastical rooters... in Sydney they really need serious root pruning three to four times a year. Where is the room for the roots to grow in those pots?
4) How do you transport/move these Islands? Even moving from the bench to the potting area would be a study in logistics, particularly when the foliage starts to develop.
5) With there seeming to be so little area for soil I presume the Three Islands will have to sit in a water tray. How easy will it be to get them out when there is a rainy spell?
I could imagine a Three Island setup if each pot is identical except for size and each pot is fully self contained but to have them interconnected is buying trouble before the trees even start growing. Maybe you need to have another look at this conception and look forward to see it in one or two years time.

Oh I definatley intend on revising, revisiting, rearraging, regrouping and exploring many other possibilities along the way.

1) Your making it sound a little more difficult than what it is, the main plant and rock way around 1.3kg, the subsequent rocks weigh less than .2 of a kg. Thus working on the main plant / re-potting, simply does not effect the secondary pots. They are not "dangling down the line", they are semi rigidly attached, allowing you to raise them on stands / lay them all on their sides etc when working on the main plant. I would put it in the same level hard basket as trying to repot a plant which has a main root off to one side. I don't even notice islands present anymore whilst attending to plants.
Do you have many plants with rooting islands? I find them quite easy to work with.
2) In the main pot, there is very little roots left. What I believe most of that structure to be in a compound trunk, which was chopped close to the soil several months ago. I guess the bottom third of the clump could be considered "root", the majority is trunk. In the future I may half the clumped trunk to ruduce the "root" look to it, but atm it has valuble nebari located to the rear still attached.
3) You have a point there, where are the roots going to grow? I have several other privets, located in pots with lots of growing medium, I guess that would be the challenge in such a setup, trying to keep it alive with little no root growing room.
4) Like above, the rocks do not actually move that much. They are wired atm, I can pick up the main plant and the roots are strong enough atm to support the islands and lift them too a hand under the end one aids the process.
5) What is Bonsai if not challenging? Sure I could simply place it in a pot or on a large flat stone, yet trial is always the way to vertue. I have more cemnt mix which can be added later, to turn the island more into a bowl if more medium is needed.

I have over around 300 privet plants sprouting around my home, from 2 cm seedlings to trees with trunks over a 30cm wide. This plant will be placed in the developing section and forgotten about for the next month or so, I'll see where it goes from there.

Thanks for your comments, they have helped me hash out where I am going with this plant. I do no hope much for it in the future yet, was a small experiment that may pay off at some point or other.