Bonsai at the Extreme of their Natural Range

[ric]

here in the wide bay i have learnt that there is no point even trying to grow maples, even the tridents seem to suffer, i have seen some liquid amber do alirght though, but the maples just seem to go stagnant and stop growing, i have a couple of elms and they seem to do ok, chinese elm is growing well, english elm will grow well when it gets stronger. a lot of cold weather plants/trees dont like it here at all. so i havent had them apart from elms. and they can be semi deciduous so i can get away with it.

i have had mixed results with junipers, as much as i love them some dont like it, i have found shimpaku seem to do the best here, but an hour and a bit north of me Rod has some really good ones squamata/prostata i think they are. and they are thriving!

maybe its just me that the cold climate trees dont like

jamie

Hi Jamie,I have hybrid variety of Acer buergerianum that is probably crossed with another Chinese maple that is evergreen (I'm not sure of its name but there are not many evergreen Chinese maples) This plant has very strong hybrid vigor and the leaves still look like trident. It never stops growing all through the year in coastal Sydney and could do well in your climate.

[Greth]

Bodhi, I remember reading about 19th century gardeners using piled horse manure to keep the frost off the cucumbers in Engand and extend their growing season that way. Maybe it would work for your garden grown Bougs? Just the compost warmth is enough to keep that bit of frost off them, and I bet they wont mind the extra nutrition too!

[bodhidharma]

Bodhi, I remember reading about 19th century gardeners using piled horse manure to keep the frost off the cucumbers in Engand and extend their growing season that way. Maybe it would work for your garden grown Bougs? Just the compost warmth is enough to keep that bit of frost off them, and I bet they wont mind the extra nutrition too!

Not a bad idea Greth. I am surrounded by cattle propertys and could use cow manure which i reckon would do the same job.

[Jonden]

I have a Japanese larch that grew in the heat of Penrith for about 25-30 years, 1 0f 5 that I started with the others lasted about 10 years. It never got good Autumn colour in Penrith, just slightly yellow then brown. I have had it for 1 Autumn in the Blue Moutains and the colour was spectacular. The problem now is that with all this rain and humidity the needles which have always been less than 2cm long are coming out about 5cm on the new growth.
Grant, maybe you can answer this, should I cut off all this new growth that is spoiling the shape or leave it to fall off in winter and then trim ?
Cheers, Jonden

[NBPCA]

I have a Japanese larch that grew in the heat of Penrith for about 25-30 years, 1 0f 5 that I started with the others lasted about 10 years. It never got good Autumn colour in Penrith, just slightly yellow then brown. I have had it for 1 Autumn in the Blue Moutains and the colour was spectacular. The problem now is that with all this rain and humidity the needles which have always been less than 2cm long are coming out about 5cm on the new growth.
Grant, maybe you can answer this, should I cut off all this new growth that is spoiling the shape or leave it to fall off in winter and then trim ?
Cheers, Jonden

Not Sure,

Depends on what percentage of the tree is old and new growth.

Probably just leave it to naturally drop. I am still new to Advanced Larch, I'm stil Larch 101.

If it were a cedar I would pluck the old long needles, but not pluck long new needles. If there was a small amount of long new needles you would cut them off.

Being a Larch, if it is a large percentage, it will drop them in a few months time so I wouldn't worry. If it is a small percentage I would consider just cutting them off.

Take a picture, showus, and we will all learn.

Grant

[Jamie]

Hi Jamie,I have hybrid variety of Acer buergerianum that is probably crossed with another Chinese maple that is evergreen (I'm not sure of its name but there are not many evergreen Chinese maples) This plant has very strong hybrid vigor and the leaves still look like trident. It never stops growing all through the year in coastal Sydney and could do well in your climate.

ric, i am very interested in the hybrid? do you have any details on it? would love to see a picture of it


jamie

[NBPCA]

Hi Jamie,I have hybrid variety of Acer buergerianum that is probably crossed with another Chinese maple that is evergreen (I'm not sure of its name but there are not many evergreen Chinese maples) This plant has very strong hybrid vigor and the leaves still look like trident. It never stops growing all through the year in coastal Sydney and could do well in your climate.

ric, i am very interested in the hybrid? do you have any details on it? would love to see a picture of it


jamie

I have seen it at Rics. It grows quickly and strongly and may handle your conditions better. Pay his air fare and I am sure he would hand deliver one. Ha Ha.

Grant

[Jamie]

I have seen it at Rics. It grows quickly and strongly and may handle your conditions better. Pay his air fare and I am sure he would hand deliver one. Ha Ha.

Grant

how bout postage and the cost of the tree

[ric]

hi Jamie,
I took some pictures of the Evergreen trident but am finding it difficult to get them to attach. I will have to get some coaching. I am not much on computers and forgot how I did it last time. Soree

[NBPCA]

hi Jamie,
I took some pictures of the Evergreen trident but am finding it difficult to get them to attach. I will have to get some coaching. I am not much on computers and forgot how I did it last time. Soree

Hi Ric,

Email it to me and I will post it for you,

Grant

[Grant Bowie]

Hi all,

This is not exactly on topic but close.

I had a visit yesterday from L F from Launceston, Tasmania. A few years ago I was conducting some workshops in Launceston and we had had a conversation about Black Pines and some advice that didn't seem to be working.

Basically they had been told to perform the "needle reduction technique" (removal of this years growth in three stages, bottom to top) starting mid summer and they would get buds and new growth before winter. They got the buds but no growth.

I said the person giving the advice was very reputable and I would have given the same advice, so there must be other factors at play here. (This was before I moved to Canberra and had a similar problem).

Hmm, what could be wrong. Firstly they are a lot further south and their summer seasons are shorter and milder. They were fertilizing at half strength(as some people still advise) so I suggested they up their fertilizer rates and see what happens.

Anyhow she told me this year in Tasmania has been a lot hotter and the Black Pines have been growing like crazy and performing more as expected. The average temperture in Canberra has also been hotter this year and I have been having similar results. I am getting growth more like when I lived in Sydney. However my own trees have missed quite a few regular fertilizings this year so it is possibly the hotter year alone that has made the major difference.

Anyone else notice any differences this year?

Grant

[Grant Bowie]

Hi all,

I haven't had any responses yet so I will presume no one is having a funny or good year with pines.

Anyhow attached is a Black Pine that was given to me a number of years ago. It had about 4 upper trunks which I slowly removed and strengthened the remainder. I used one minor side branch to become the continuation of the trunk line.Its a sort of Bunjin/Literati/sinuous style. Another year or three and it should be OK.

Anyhow I trimmed it back starting Christmas day and it has responded really well.

If I were in sydney I would have started about 6 weeks earlier, around 15th November, but its just not warm enough here in November.

Comments welcome, I still need to do some more work on it. Get the right branch down a bit maybe.

Black pine 1974 stock.JPG

[NBPCA]

Hi Jamie,I have hybrid variety of Acer buergerianum that is probably crossed with another Chinese maple that is evergreen (I'm not sure of its name but there are not many evergreen Chinese maples) This plant has very strong hybrid vigor and the leaves still look like trident. It never stops growing all through the year in coastal Sydney and could do well in your climate.

ric, i am very interested in the hybrid? do you have any details on it? would love to see a picture of it


jamie

Here is the tree from the website challenged Ric

Hybrid Evergreen Trident.jpg

Same.jpg

[bodhidharma]

Hi all,

I haven't had any responses yet so I will presume no one is having a funny or good year with pines.

Hi Ya Grant, sorry to respond this late. I have been flat out doing Figs repotting, defoliating etc you know the drill. Anyway, i to have noticed strange behavior in my pines and that is they are growing flat out with minimum fertilizing and water. I try to keep watering to a minimum this time of year to keep needle size down but they are still powering on. I have one in the ground that i am trying to fatten up and it has probably put on 20-30% this year alone. Go figure. I have a theory that the lower states are becoming sub tropical and in our short life(compared to Mother Nature) we probably wont fully see it but i think it is happening.

[Bretts]

Being the newb that I am(especially with pines) I can't compare much with other years but I have noticed this year that on my strongest pines I am on to my third candle burst
I have had no reason to pluck candles so that is just normal growth.
I think I need to grow more pines

I have been growing larch from seed here in Parkes for a few years. Ray would not sell me any because he said they would die out here so I bought some seeds. Three left I think and from reading the advice hear I am pretty sure it is the mix I have them in this year that is causing more dead leaves than usual
I will check them over today and see if I should pray they get through the winter or put them in some better soil before Winter hits.

Been Growing Hornbeam out here in the heat as well. Has been a long learning curve to battle the leaf burn. After getting the soil and Micro climate as best I can I now think It is a matter of reducing the salts with Rain water and ideal fertiliser regime.

I was discussing Hornbeams and Maples with Don out at Hay and he said he was not able to grow hornbeams out there but is able to grow japanese maples "just' This was confusing for us as I found Japanese maples more difficult that hornbeams.
One thing that has not been mentioned here is that it seems that the larger the specimen the more it is able to handle the extremes out of thier natural range.
As I have only ever had small Japanese Maples maybe this is why and I will have to get a decent sized one to try.