AusBonsai

That’s a ripper post Tim. As a non-gingko and non-kohuna owner - I find the photos and the description hugely interesting. Sorry I could not be there to help you - COVID restricted - but it looks like you more than managed. Well played and I look forward to progress on the tree and the new knobs ... if they do take and you do sell some of them... I’ll reserve three please.


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My final photo of what it looks like in the box turned out arse yesterday, so here it is now. Yup a stump in a box, but it has to start somewhere.

Well done Tim. Great tree and a great post.

Good signs, green buds appearing across the tree. As usual the GInkgos are the last to bud out, all my other deciduous have leafed out weeks ago.

I didn't need to have any concerns at all, this bad boy has gone absolutely coco bananas with growth from existing shoots and dormant buds popping all over from top to bottom. I have put some very lose guide wires on a few shoots to direct them to better angles but on the whole i've just been letting it do it's thing. I have a wider and shallower poly box that i will probably transfer it into next year as the base is almost as wide as the current box is. I can probably do more carving work next year on it as well judging by how happy it already is after getting drastic with the saw.

A couple of photos from how it is doing today. Its too heavy to move anywhere more photogenic without giving myself a hernia, and since i'll be moving house in a few weeks and having to move all my belongings as well as the entire collection and propagation, i want to save my back for that.

Thanks for the update Tim, very cool to see this stump progressing well.

Did you have any luck with the knobbly cuttings?

No luck with the knobbly cuttings sadly, the bases of them went all white, mushy and furry so i gave up on them.

Little update, she's had good autumn colours


I use 'had' in the past tense because i was moving trees around to fit a new addition in and i got the absolute sh*ts with all the polystyrene grow boxes that i've been using on various trees and so i my eyes narrowed in the direction of this tree. The box it was in got so heavy that i was at the absolute outer limit of what i felt comfortable lifting by myself, not to mention the polystyrene was degrading in the sun and it would break off in my hands, so action was taken.

I slip potted it into this training pot and found that it has grow an incredible amount of roots in one year. I'd actually got it to use on my other stump from 'Ginkgo Comes Home' thread, so i'll have to buy another one for that tree, but once i realised i could shoehorn the stump into it action had to be taken immediatly. I've removed the leaves that were hanging on, only cut a couple of roots that were very high up out of the soil line and potted it into this training pot. I know i've just drastically slowed the development rate of this tree, but frankly not being able to move it without straining my back was the bigger concern.

Here it is now in the 'saving my back' pot AKA the training pot. Almost a year on from the photo above and lots of useful shoots have sprouted so hopefully it will continue doing well. Operation "Get every f***ing poly grow box out of my life" to follow on other trees.

Looking good Tim. And I hear you on the poly boxes. Although I just recently picked up m ore

If you were in Melbourne you could come and collect all mine, i take them home from work too easily

That's looking super healthy!

Thanks Mel!

I’m finding ginkgo to be a curious species but one that really works well for me so far

Thank tree is coming along very nicely Tim.
made the same transition years ago, much easier and nicer in the yard. Only one poly left with a big old Swampy that has to go.
Cheers
Kirky

I've finally made a choice on one of the flat cut trunks on this bad boy.

I cut the big flat cut trunk out of the centre of the tree. While it was live, it just made the trunk look like a barrel. Originally i was retaining it for carving, but the more i looked at the less i could find a height or size at which i thought a carved deadwood section would make sense or even look any good.

Given Ginkgo don't grow in the bonsai flame shape in nature, it only makes sense to my mind if it were an old tree that sustained massive damage to the trunk and re-shot from low down, leaving a hollow where the main single *imaginary in this case* straight single trunk originally was that subsequently rotted away, and a new primary trunk line was beginning to take over at last.

So i've removed the central flat cut trunk as i say and put putty over the wound for now. There is a bud on the rear that when it grows will provide some branching back behind the hollow so it won't draw the eye as dramatically then.

When that bud grows i'll make a decision about the flat cut trunk at the rear, if i reduce that down to that bud, and that will inform the final flat cut behind the thick continuation of the primary trunk line.

I think it has helped the taper issue, or rather just removed some visual weight out of the tree that make it such a brick of a stump to look at. The secondary trunk on the right hand side in the photo is now fully visible, where it was almost entirely blocked from view when i got it. While it is dead straight i absolutely prefer to see it than have it obscured by that thick, central, flat cut trunk.

All in all i'm happy with the change. It's going to still take an exceptionally long time to stop looking like a stump, but one day it might get there.

I've had some spare time today so i went through and cleaned out quite a lot of the old Mt Dandenong clay out from the roots, crevices and folds in the base that i've revealed since raising the root level.

It's really showing off its age now at the base with lots of gnarls on display, as well as some interesting rotted out roots at various points around the base that i will lime sulphur and make features. I had to remove a few large sections of the flaky bark on the front side of the tree due to there being lots of crud and soil underneath it, so it looks terrible at the moment, but it's better it doesn't have mud behind the bark on the whole.

Still no idea how i'll go about carving it to look less like a stump in a pot, but i think thats not essential right away. All in all the base looks a long stronger and displays the age of the stump better imo.

A couple of photos of the gnarls and rotted roots that are on full display now. The aerial roots in the second photo will be removed and that section they are growing off will be a rotted root jin if such a thing exists? Some gnarls visible now that were full of the original field clay and covered before

Back shot of the stump now