Ginkgo "The Big Kahuna'

[Keep Calm and Ramify]

Definite improvements you've made on this since purchasing. Setting up nicely for future glory. The proportions look good.

[Daluke]

I think this tree is awesome. I don’t think it’s far off getting to its first “incarnation” of a bonsai.

A tiny clockwise angle change and you show off the taper.

Pump it with fertiliser and I think you’ll get branches where you want.

The red lines on yours is suggested removals.

I had a look online and I found this - it looks like your tree with a few more leaves.

When you trawl back through to the start of the thread you realise how far you’ve pushed it - each step looks like an improvement.

Keep up the good work.

[TimS]

Definite improvements you've made on this since purchasing. Setting up nicely for future glory. The proportions look good.

Thanks very much! A tree is slowly emerging from the stump so i'll just keep plodding away at it.

[TimS]

I think this tree is awesome. I don’t think it’s far off getting to its first “incarnation” of a bonsai.

A tiny clockwise angle change and you show off the taper.

Pump it with fertiliser and I think you’ll get branches where you want.

The red lines on yours is suggested removals.

I had a look online and I found this - it looks like your tree with a few more leaves.

When you trawl back through to the start of the thread you realise how far you’ve pushed it - each step looks like an improvement.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks for your kind words, lockdowns permitting if you pick up a white chojubai have a look at it in person, it is still very rough though! It was a bit of a gamble to buy given how it initially looked, but they are incredibly tough and tolerant of significant root work and big chops as long as you accept the scars will be visible forever.

You hit the nail on the head with the clockwise turn to the second photo there, that's exactly my 'front' of the tree at the moment, just not how it's planted in the training pot thats all.

I'm finding that ginkgo actually develop very quickly once you have some trunk to work with as they prolifically throw dormant buds and i'm constantly having to assess which ones i want and which ones i don't. It's the healing over of scars that takes an eternity more than the thickening in my limited experience. Especially shoots in the upper areas, they thicken like mad being such an apically dominant tree.

I don't have a photo editor on this crappy old laptop i'm on at the moment, but rather than going for a triangular shape tapering to a point like the red lines, i'm aiming for the base to be more of a tulip shape leading to a flame top. That's why i've left a lot of the low shoots on it to grow out. If anyone is a whisky drinker and knows the Glencairn glass; the way the liquid holding portion swells out at the bottom and then tapers back in to the top is a good example of the tulip/ flame shape i have in my head for the tree.

Ultimately this is not going to be a beautiful winter silhouette tree given such odd taper and obvious reduction points, so i'm growing it with the development focus being on it looking good in full autumn colour when the odd trunk is mostly obscured.

[zulupink]

Do ginkos have a second flush of growth like maples etc ?

[TimS]

Yep, Ginkgo in my experience will do a minimum of 2 to 3 pushes of growth from Spring to Summer. This particular tree is into flush #2 now.

I don't defoliate in the same way I would a Trident Maple however; what I will do is remove the excessively large leaves to allow light into the inner areas where the new flush is coming to promote it.

The growth is interesting and different to most deciduous species too. They have both regular alternate buds but also whorls too. The whorl growth tends to thicken very quickly during extension, while the alternating buds remain thinner for much longer. Purely my experience though, others might see it differently

[TimS]

Not much to update here other than having cut further back some of the dead wood where the flat cuts were in an attempt to get some healing started.

The top two scars have started to roll over, the very large one at the centre has one one side too, but nothing on the back one yet.

Some kind of critters (i presume slugs or snails) enjoy munching on the putty so i have put a fresh cover back on the exposed areas today.

Here's a few different angles; i think it's never going to be a beautiful winter silhouette tree, much better to be seen with some foliage on it to hide the horrorshow of (lacking) taper it currently is.

Where my planned 'front' currently is

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View of the major scars that will taking varying eternities to heal up if they even ever do

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back-ish view of the flat cuts having been reduced/ smoothed out a bit

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Top down view

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Back view; still just a big ol' ugly stump

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And for a little bit of a juxtaposition; this ginkgo i grew from seed back in 2018 along with a dozen others. The others were all bolt upright, and have all been sold off or given away variously now, but this one grew with a weird bend in the trunk so i've kept it to work on and see if i can create something a bit more interesting than big ass stump ginkgos in time.

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[TimS]

This is still rough as old badgers, but i've been defoliating my ginkgos this year, the first year i've committed to actually doing it and i'm very happy with the results. My hand was forced by some foliage scorch after moving them from a very filtered light spot into full sun. They have since come back under cover to be on the safe side.

The keen eyed among you will see i've removed some of the low shoots from the trunk. I just couldn't see a future in which i liked them being on the tree, so off they came.

Going to be a very very long road with this tree, but hopefully worth the time and effort i knew it would take when i purchased it

Went to Bonsai Farm today in Hawthorn, some great old ginkogs there too but a bit outside my price range. Makes me happy i picked this one up for the cost of a half decent bottle of scotch.

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[TimS]

Heading into winter with this tree, not sure if i'm too close to it to not see the progress but it's been feeling like i've been treading water with BK a bit

Ah well, it's only been 3 years so i'll keep plodding along.

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[Keep Calm and Ramify]

Definite progress with what I can see

[Albo]

I’d love to have that tree. Keep at it.

I had a ginkgo I planted in my front yard of my old house for 10 years. I think it grew about a foot in that time.
I think they are just slow to develop. But maybe climate and soil not ideal for mine.

I should ask the new owner if I can dig it up. I driven past the old place and it’s obvious they don’t care about the yard.

I’d hate to drive past one day and they have binned it.

[TimS]

I’d love to have that tree. Keep at it.

I had a ginkgo I planted in my front yard of my old house for 10 years. I think it grew about a foot in that time.
I think they are just slow to develop. But maybe climate and soil not ideal for mine.

I should ask the new owner if I can dig it up. I driven past the old place and it’s obvious they don’t care about the yard.

I’d hate to drive past one day and they have binned it.

Ginkgo are definitely slow to thicken, but I've never found them particularly slow to develop branching (or what approximates for branching on ginkgo), one of my other ginkgo is a dwarf cultivar and branches like crazy. With clip and grow and nothing else you get really nice, natural movements.

My other big ginkgo, Ginkgo Comes Home thread, originated from a very similar circumstance to the one you speak of; had been in the ground for 20+ years and was rescued before being woodchipped by the council. It is well on its way to being a great tree, so it would be well worth you a trip past if the opportunity* presents itself.

*by opportunity i mean camp outside the house and accost the owner for it. Alternatively bribe with a case of beer.

[Albo]

I’d love to have that tree. Keep at it.

I had a ginkgo I planted in my front yard of my old house for 10 years. I think it grew about a foot in that time.
I think they are just slow to develop. But maybe climate and soil not ideal for mine.

I should ask the new owner if I can dig it up. I driven past the old place and it’s obvious they don’t care about the yard.

I’d hate to drive past one day and they have binned it.

Ginkgo are definitely slow to thicken, but I've never found them particularly slow to develop branching (or what approximates for branching on ginkgo), one of my other ginkgo is a dwarf cultivar and branches like crazy. With clip and grow and nothing else you get really nice, natural movements.

My other big ginkgo, Ginkgo Comes Home thread, originated from a very similar circumstance to the one you speak of; had been in the ground for 20+ years and was rescued before being woodchipped by the council. It is well on its way to being a great tree, so it would be well worth you a trip past if the opportunity* presents itself.

*by opportunity i mean camp outside the house and accost the owner for it. Alternatively bribe with a case of beer.

I think I’ll take you up on that advice around accosting the owner. Especially considering the history I already have with that particular tree. I should have taken it when I left but I just had a lot of other things going on at the time it wasn’t a priority.

[TimS]

Wow, long time since i updated this thread, and tbh i put it up in the sale at Waverly at a drug money price just on the off chance someone wanted to buy it, but also known i was more than happy to keep it given i could never find another one this age and size

Spring has finally broken for the Ginkgos, always the last of my trees to pop, and a continual feature of this tree has been its desire to throw dormant buds from the lower base. In the past i've removed these to maintain the primary tree, but I'm thinking I'll actually keep and grow these to add more foliar mass the the tree and to hide the large dead section in the middle.

Fundamentally there is a reason Ginkgo is almost exclusively grown in flame style, and that is their love for throwing dormant buds off bare wood, so i won't fight it.

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[TimS]

Been all of summer since any update on this tree, all going well nothing to really report on it. It's shot a bunch of buds from low down on the trunk that i've decided to stop fighting and let grow as they will all help hide the big scar and weird transitions of a ground grown stump.

Little bit of summer leaf scorch which i don't typically get on Ginkgo, but this has been a really dry summer too, but just chugging along the way Ginkgo do. Photo includes the breeze blocks as they are a sense of scale

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