AusBonsai

Sorry Jamie maybe I didn't explain myself well enough. There has been tonnes of growth on the plant in the 4 years, branches were trimmed back regularly. They were 4-5inch chunks of mid branch, no taper at all when struck and very little taper now. I can't say I would honesty expect any type of tapering on a 5 inch thick parallel walled cutting. You may get some basal flare due to roots, but there isn't going to be any significant tapering going on.

I posted a shot just above of the edge rolling. You can see the top is rolling nicely and engulfing the dead heartwood by at least 3cm, but the sides have not rolled over the edge completely as Grant pointed out.

understood!

was a little confused bout it thats all. best bet to get the sides rolling in quicker is to allow some branches to grow from close to the edge. that will help speed the rolling process up

That makes sense, the areas with branching have rolled nicely as in the top where the branch is. I have some PJ cuttings that I could graft near the edge, there's nothing there to work with atm.

Mitchell wrote:Sorry Jamie maybe I didn't explain myself well enough. There has been tonnes of growth on the plant in the 4 years, branches were trimmed back regularly. They were 4-5inch chunks of mid branch, no taper at all when struck and very little taper now. I can't say I would honesty expect any type of tapering on a 5 inch thick parallel walled cutting. You may get some basal flare due to roots, but there isn't going to be any significant tapering going on.

I posted a shot just above of the edge rolling. You can see the top is rolling nicely and engulfing the dead heartwood by at least 3cm, but the sides have not rolled over the edge completely as Grant pointed out.

leave lots of branching at various places around the trunk and higher up for years.. Get it growing, cut off branches gradually over years, assess need for carving then.

grant