AusBonsai

That looks better Grant, now let the small branch grow rampant to thicken. I hope the hot house works well.

See ya on the weekend, and get here early Monday ya can help me fertilize, the trees that is . Just hope the weather forcaster's run to form its supposed to be raining 1 out of 6 aint bad is it.

Cheers Pup

Pup wrote:That looks better Grant, now let the small branch grow rampant to thicken. I hope the hot house works well.

See ya on the weekend, and get here early Monday ya can help me fertilize, the trees that is . Just hope the weather forcaster's run to form its supposed to be raining 1 out of 6 aint bad is it.

Cheers Pup

Just checked the Perth weather forcast and it looks like nice weather and temps while I am there.

Glad to help you fertilize on Monday morning. I fertilized the conifers and evergreens at the collection last week and they are looking good. Your Callistemon has bright red newish growth at the moment and it almost looks like it is flowering at the moment.

I am bringing lots of pics for the club talks.

Grant

Grant Bowie wrote:

Pup wrote:That looks better Grant, now let the small branch grow rampant to thicken. I hope the hot house works well.

See ya on the weekend, and get here early Monday ya can help me fertilize, the trees that is . Just hope the weather forcaster's run to form its supposed to be raining 1 out of 6 aint bad is it.

Cheers Pup

Just checked the Perth weather forcast and it looks like nice weather and temps while I am there.

Glad to help you fertilize on Monday morning. I fertilized the conifers and evergreens at the collection last week and they are looking good. Your Callistemon has bright red newish growth at the moment and it almost looks like it is flowering at the moment.

I am bringing lots of pics for the club talks.

Grant

Hi Grant.
Are you coming to Perth this weekend? Will you be talking at the bonsai workshop on Saturday arvo ?? That would be cool

Update.

The tree is slowly budding, swelling and coming into leaf.

It will only have another two weeks or so of growth before it shuts down for winter so it probably wont be in full leaf. The PJ Fig I am minding of max candys and two Tiger fig cuttings are still growing right beside it.
It is now regularly getting down to minus 3 or even minus 5 outside in the morning, and as we sleep with windows open the inside of the house can get down to about 7 degrees.

Grant

Where are you keeping your figs, Grant? I have one I defoliated about 2 weeks ago which has shoots all over. But our climate is a little more forgiving than yours. We have had one night that got down to 9, and day temps are usually 21-23 at present.

Glenda

Glenda wrote:Where are you keeping your figs, Grant? I have one I defoliated about 2 weeks ago which has shoots all over. But our climate is a little more forgiving than yours. We have had one night that got down to 9, and day temps are usually 21-23 at present.

Glenda

Our day time temps are maxing out at around 10 to 14 degrees.

The figs are in a north facing room with double glass door. They get sun through the glass from about 9.30 am till about 3pm. I close the curtains at night so they don't get frost nip through the glass.

If it doesn't leaf out in the next few weeks it will sit dormant till about late September and it will go outside again around late October. (About 6 months inside)

Grant

Another Update.

Late Defoliation was 7th May

It is now 3rd July and although the tree is not back in full leaf I thought it was worth an update.

It is an absolute mass of buds all over the tree, on wood between 2 and 3 years old, but not back on trunk or oldest parts of branches. Perfect as far as I am concerned.

The buds are swelling all over and a fair percentage of them have burst open with, and here is the surprise, the tiniest, cutest, little leaves that I have ever seen on a Fig that aren't immediately swamped by growth in a day or two!

Why? Firstly its cold down here so the new growth forced by defoliation is growing but not rampantly. It just can't.
Why doesn't it get big leaves because it is inside? Firstly it is in full sun through the glass doors during the day, so enough light and no need for big leaves. Second it just can't because it isn't growing too vigorously.

I think next year I will do a late defoliation but say about 4 weeks earlier and see what happens.

Grant

Hmm so you reckon I should bring my figs into the house and defoliate them Grant ?
Craig

gday grant, i love the look of figs that have just started to leaf out any chance of a pic? if it isnt to much trouble, i love this tree of yours

jamie

craigw60 wrote:Hmm so you reckon I should bring my figs into the house and defoliate them Grant ?
Craig

Hi Craig,

If you have a north facing window/glass door I would consider it. I will defoliate April next year and see what happens. You could try something similar as an experiment.

Grant

Jamie wrote:gday grant, i love the look of figs that have just started to leaf out any chance of a pic? if it isnt to much trouble, i love this tree of yours

jamie

Hi Jamie,

Been away all weekend and will organise it tomorrow.

Grant

Hi Grant plenty of north facing windows here the sun pours in over winter but it could be a little late in the season ?. The tiny leaves would be great. Are you going to post a pic?
Craig

Hi Craig,

The reason for the exercise was mainly to allow me to wire the tree without leaves. I had observed in the past when I put my figs indoor around April /May that they would continue grow till end June. The defoliation is making it grow longer into winter than I expected and therefore small leaves have resulted, but only in a spotty manner. As I said it is covered in buds that continue to elongate and some buds have broken.

I will defoliate a month earlier next year to get it back into full leaf quicker.

I will organise photos late this afternoon.

Cheers,

Grant

Thanks Grant

Hi all,

As you can see the fig is greening up just from the number of buds pushing out and elongating.

Some leaves had broken out a month ago and are around 20mm or so but some tiny ones are just 3, 4 or 5mm long are now opening. Small but perfectly formed as they say. As an experiment it is proving very interesting.

Grant