Casuarina cunninghamiana progression

[Steven]

G'day,

I purchased this She Oak from Leigh in March of this year when I was in Canberra for the National Exhibition of Australian Plants as Bonsai.

March 2010 at Ledanta.jpg

Leigh and I haggled on price over a beer or 2 and I then squeezed it into my car for the journey home. I'm not sure of the history or age but hopefully Leigh can fill me/us in.
It has been sitting peacefully in my yard waiting for me to get time to attack it and tonight is that night

This is how it is looking at the moment;

September 2010 with wine.jpg

September 2010 left.jpg

September 2010 back.jpg

September 2010 back 2.jpg

September 2010 right.jpg

Any ideas, virts or advice would be greatly appreciated before I get the reciprocating saw onto it.

Regards,
Steven

[Chris H]

2000 Mount Pleasant - Ill see you around 8.

[craigw60]

What are your plans Steven ?. If you want to grow it up in the main trunk then from the pics I like the fourth one. There is a large branch which leaves the trunk at an odd angle, I would not use that on as a leader the curve would be too unnatural and would take years of growing to soften. If you want to cut the trunk down there is a branch just above the odd one which could be a good candidate. I will be very interested to see what you do with such a lovely starter tree.
Craigw

[Webos]

Hey Steven ,
A very quick Virt 10 years from now

[Steven]

Thanks for the virt Webos!

What are your plans Steven ?

Well, I went against your advice Craig but appreciate it none the less. The front you mentioned (4th one down) was an option however it would have been a much taller tree than I would have liked. There was also some reverse taper to deal with that couldn't be rectified by carving.
There is still plenty of shaping and carving to be done but this is a start.

September 2010.jpg

Regards,
Steven

[Chris H]

Nice bit of carving on the vessel.

[Webos]

Love how you've cut the little handles into your pot! I've cut so many pots and it was always a hassle without the lip on the edge of the pot. I'm definitely going to use that idea!

[Chris H]

Webos I was standing alongside him and can I tell you the man is a master with the hole saw!

There was plastic flying.

[Roger]

Steve
Any update on how this tree is going?

[Steven]

G'day Roger,

No styling has been done as yet.
After the last picture/work, I grew the new leader to approx 2mtrs high to fatten it up. It was then chopped back in November 2011. I wish I had put some movement into it before it got so think but I'll have to do it now by chopping back to a branch.
Next step is to add some wire and shape the primary branches then in March I'll repot into something more manageable.
The following picture was taken this morning.

2012 January.jpg

Thanks for your interest.

Regards,
Steven

[Roger]

Steven
Your tree is coming on well.

I like the line of the 'new' leader that you want to chop down . It has a very characteristic shape to what they do in 'nature'.

The old river she oaks I've studied along the Cotter, Wee Japser and Hawksbury Rivers all follow the same sort of pattern. The trunk lines tend strongly to either 'straight' or to broad single curves. The branches are of two types: a) long straight or single arcs (growth during good times) or abrupt changes of direction near the ends of large branches that have died at the tip or just broken off (regrowth after bad times). These two units of shape are arranged in endless variety, but the patterns are the same. Sometimes the lines are simple, but in others they become an incredible display of contorted zig zags. All this really gives them a character of their own that doesn't look standard pine like at all.

Look forward to seeing what March '12 brings!

Cheers
Roger

[Hornet]

Very very nice stock mate, cant seem to find anything anywhere near that quality here

[Steven]

G'day,

It has been a couple of years since I updated this thread and I recently worked on it during one of the masterclasses with Ryan Neil so I guess it is time for another installment.

In April 2012 I built a training pot out of some left over Spotted Gum floor boards.

2012 April (a).jpg

I used a hand saw to cut off over half the roots, then teased the rest out and removed approximately 70% of the remaining soil. I potted it into my standard mix of Diatomite, Zeolite and coir. At the same time I cut back the foliage and removed all unnecessary branches.

2012 April (b).jpg

2012 April (c).jpg

It grew well in the new mix and the foliage was a lot denser than it had been in the past. In January 2013 I had a bit of a play with it with Jonden and he pointed out that the back made a good front after a bit of an angle change.

2013 January (a).jpg

2013 January (b).jpg

I decided to take the tree along to the 26th AABC convention in Canberra to do a workshop on it with Ryan Neil. A few people said it wasn't a good idea to take along material that he wasn't familiar with but I figured that a 3 hour workshop was only to style the tree, not maintain it.

2013 May (a).jpg

Ryan like the tree and said that it was "stellar material". He had spent some time researching Aussie natives before he came so he was a little familiar with Casuarina. Ryan was great to learn from! He has a very dynamic way of teaching and I really enjoyed the experience. We discussed the options for the tree and he liked the new front that I was planning. He asked me to wire the tree from trunk to tip on all branches that we were planning to keep. We then discussed the way Casuarina branches grew and set about styling. He left most of the bending to me but would come by and tweak and correct as he saw fit.

2013 May (b).jpg

2013 May (c).jpg

I'm very happy with the direction it is heading and am looking forward to continuing to build on the structure that has been set. I'll leave it be until Spring but will keep a close eye on the wire considering how rapidly Casuarina grow. The apex will be cut back as soon as I see the wire starting to dig in.

2013 May (d).jpg

Feel free to comment, critique or ask questions as you see fit.

Regards,
Steven

[GavinG]

Some seriously funky branches there Steven. They harmonise with the trunk and look like a Cas., not just a fake pine. Will be very interested to see how you sort out the fine branching in time. Lovely tree, thanks for posting.

Gavin

[fiveoffive]

Gota say at the start i was like mmm
Then i was like thats a big chop
AHH I like i like
Now 5 years from now its going to look great.