Collecting urban Dwarf Callistemon

[Bretts]

The Mother in Law wanted the Native shrubs in her front yard gone so I hot trotted over there today before she started chopping them down.I new they where a decent size but could not remember what then trunks where like and although I have no room for them I could not let her get away with saying they where too big for me to dig out
Took the biggest one first. Nice size but one of the two largest trunks will most probably have to go to make something out of it.
Thought the smaller one was much the same but was surprised to find an amazing base hidden under the soil. Now I wonder what is at the base of the larger one that is still hidden by soil.
There is another native there that I thought she was keeping but now I am getting that out too. Not sue what species it is looks somewhat like a Lilly pilly from a quick look but much smaller leaves. Was thinking Myrtle for some reason and now I look that up it seems they are related to lily pilly so that makes sense Learn something new every day with Natives
I thought the trunk on it was the best not sure now but should be good. Have to leave that for another day though because I am absolutely buggered. So much that I was considering a Nana nap before cleaning up. Shoot I must be getting old

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[kcpoole]

Aren't MILS wonderful

Great place to go collections and wonderful score brett

Ken

[Bretts]

Didn't know your Mother in Law read Ausbonsai Ken

One of my best trees came from her garden about 5 yeras ago so she aint all bad

[Tony Bebb]

Nice score mate.

Mothers-in-law can be helpful.

Damn shame to have to find room for those. Look forward to the updates.

Tony

[bodhidharma]

Well, that would have been your exercise for the day Bretts i hope you do some nice stuff with these ones, they look to be very nice potentials.

[Bretts]

Yes the exercise did me well. Where is the fat smiley
Just about to re-organise the benches

Looks like this will teach me some about the different native species. Pol asked me if they are the paperbark type bottle brush. He has had no luck with them at all. Said funny you ask as I found the base to be like paperbark and the branches the corky bark. I am starting to think they are grafted! That may account for the mad base.
Now I am not sure what the Paperbark Callistemon is or if there even is one. I always thought they where not a bottle brush but what would I know?
Little bit of looking and found this.
http://www.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl= ... uwOk26XpCw

What is a Bottlebrush?
Bottlebrushes are members of the genus Callistemon and belong to the family Myrtaceae. They are closely related to paperbark melaleucas, which also have 'bottlebrush' shaped flower spikes. It is difficult to tell to which genus some species belong. Botanists are currently closely studying these plants to determine how they are best classified. There are 34 species currently called Callistemon.

So it seems although closely related the paper bark can not be Callistemon. So they must be grafted?

Went and had another look a the other native to be collected and found it has very small lily pilly type fruit on it. Done a little re-search and it seems the lilly pilly is the only one to have fruit that looks just like this. So it seems I have found a very small leaved and fruit lilly pily with what seems to be a nice big ripper trunk. This may even be he pick of he bunch
Noticed some scale on it too but I think I would be chopping of all the foliage on that one so probably won't even need to treat it.
Will keep ya's posted.

[Bretts]

Here we are 1 and 1/4 years on. The smaller one stayed in the shade house since collecting. Not ideal but in the end it was going ok there so I left it be.
It gets the web worm thingy. I often just wash it off but have also treated with confidor.

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After experiencing die back after only cutting back a callistemon it was explained by Pup that they can not take nicely to hard pruning so I left as much on as possible when collecting. Took more off today and it will now spend the season in full sun.

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The larger one has spent it's time since collecting just under the back veranda so it got good sun only part of the day. It is a little more vigorous.
This one could go several different ways in styling. Twin trunk. cascade maybe or just select one trunk ?
I would love to take it to a workshop or hand it over for a demo it could be interesting what they come up with!
Any ideas?

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Oh and the larger one gets the web worm thingy just as bad treated the same.

[Josh]

They are looking good Bretts, do you have a plan for these trees. Love to see your thoughts and then where they end up.

Josh

[kcpoole]

thought the smallone was Big! then you showed the big one
Hernia material there I reckon. You trying to compete with olive for the biggest one !

the 1st view of the larger one lolkes like a lovely trunk line and the right hand one cut bak hard as a smaller secondary trunk woud look real nice. Then the other photos show all the trunks sreading out from the base so maybe the first impression not correct?

Hard to judge this one mate and I rackon a Demo or Workshop will be a great idea

Ken

[MattA]

Hey Brett,
Great pair of Callistemon They look like 'Little John' a slow growing dwarf hybrid, if your going to remove any heavy pieces can I suggest layering first. Its not common to find thick trunks of this variety, even less so short thick trunks

The papery bark on the lower trunk is not a graft but from contact with the soil & constant moisture, once exposed to light & air it begins to dry out and will eventually take on a similar appearance to the upper bark. This is a pic of the lower trunk on mine, I have marked 3 lines, red was the top of the grass layer, green was the true soil level & blue is the soil level when first potted.

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Look forward to seeing where you take them.
Matt

Ps. Did you ID the other plant with small leaves & fruit? It could be Myrtus communis http://www.australianethnobotany.net/vi ... f=6&t=4777

[Bretts]

Thanks Josh,
I always thought a broom type shape using most of the branches but maybe there is a main trunk branch that will work better? I think a direction will need to be chosen on the bigger one and I doubt any more than two of those branches would be kept. But which ones I am not sure yet.

I just checked that angle Ken and that picture seems very decieving. The upright branch there is fairly slender but in the pic it seems to meld with the back branch and look much bigger ????

That's interesting Matt thanks I will keep an eye on the bark and see what happenes. Have you shown that bottle brush yet?

[MattA]

Heres the thread for it viewtopic.php?f=9&t=8213

[Bretts]

I think it's time for the smaller one to get a work over. I would really love to utilize as much of the old branches as I can. Time to draw on my penjing spirit
Any ideas?