AusBonsai

simonm wrote:what are the advantages of defoliating?

There is a lot of debate on defoliation. What are the main reasons for defoliation how often .

To answer some questions such as why and what advantage, my main reason for defoliation is ramification.
When the new growth starts it forms new buds which in turn become twigs which the become branches.
Another reason is to promote one area of a tree, so it thickens as in a branch, or part of the trunk.

Leaf reduction is another. I have just defoliated a couple of my Ficus, and will be doing more as this month passes.
I will do my Lilly Pillys both Syzygium and Achmena later in December, also my Olives.
I have a picture to illustrate what I mean about thickening. This branch is being left to thicken to match the others. Ficus rubiganosa Port Jackson Fig

The majority of my deciduous trees have been leaf pruned already. I'm in the northern hemisphere

You seem to be mistaken here Stymie. You are not a couple of seasons ahead of us but behind

I was about to add to my post that I think it is when you can explain something that you truly understand it. Well explained Mr Pup Much simpler than my explanation.

Hi Pup & Brets

Thankyou for taking the time and explaining the process so fully and simply that it can be understood. It is this type of sharing by people of your expertise that make this site so terrific.

Again many thanks,
Cactuscandy

i defoliated a mirror bush last wednesday, and am hoping to push about 4-5 of them this season...

Standard leaf from nursery stock on left.

Leaves on Bonsai after 3rd defoiation.

Grant

Great comparison Grant, thanks for that!

simonm wrote:what are the advantages of defoliating?

Old post, but I am catching up with my reading.
Another reason for defoliating is to age the tree. All trees drop leaves as a natural cycle of their growth, deciduous trees do it annually as we know, but evergreens drop as well. When we defoliate a tree, it puts out another flush of growth and so the tree has just gone through a "cycle". If we defoliate straight away again then the tree goes through another "cycle". So theres two years growth, so we defoliate again and again and again there is five years of "cycle" in one year Do that for three years and you will have a tree which is in effect 15 years old.
As for frequency, I know one leading grower who defoliates his Figs up to 8 times a year, but I reckon thats guttsy stuff, I limit mine to 6 or 7 Boxing day defoliation is for leaf reduction and all the others are purely age ones as I seldom get much leaf reduction at other times.

thats interesting graeme, i would of thought the tree wouldnt age as quickly as it would be putting energy into growing the leaves? it wouldnt help with trunk girth either, i can see how it works for ramification which is how you must be meaning by "aging" the tree. with it creating a denser tree?

can you please explain this further?

(once again asking lots of questions, i know pain in the a$$ i am )


jamie

Defoliation certainly allows us to have the greatest amount of leaves on the greatest amount of branches as possible is as compact an outline as possible. The tree will continue to thicken as normal.

It also activates or reactivates buds or old buds internally which helps with compaction and aging process/look.

With an Ash we bend the long tips down at the end and buds activate further back up the branch which we then bend down when long enough etc.

If you just trim figs you don't geta lot of back budding. If you defoliate it explodes with new buds all over.

I won't show a photo of the tree I am playing with until after May as it will be a part of my presentation at the AABC convention in Sydney this year.

The reduction in leaf size is quite dramatic.

Grant

righto! that helps alot cheers grant

i hope this works with my banyan style fig i have done recently then, it should pop with new growth as i completly defoliated it

jamie

Final update on the defoliation of the Desert Ash.

I did the 3rd defoliation for the season on Christmas day and the 4th defoliation yesterday, just 23 days between 3rd and 4th defoliation. It had leafed out so quickly and mostly fully hardened off in that time. I also applied more wire to the new tips and put them into place.

I will leave it at that for the year as I will now just trim the new leaves that emerge back to 2 or 4 leaves and appreciate the look for the rest of the season. I will unwire in Autumn or earlier if it starts to look tight.

Grant

amazing how far they have come down grant! cant complain about that i look forward to seeing the tree once it fills out again with tiny leaves and trimmed to shape when you get the time. mate it must be a pretty hard job keeping all the trees in check i reckon. your doing a great job!


jamie

jamie111 wrote:amazing how far they have come down grant! cant complain about that i look forward to seeing the tree once it fills out again with tiny leaves and trimmed to shape when you get the time. mate it must be a pretty hard job keeping all the trees in check i reckon. your doing a great job!


jamie

The Ash I am refering to is in my own collection and it is 1 of 2 that I own. As with most people I have too many trees but well down on what I used to have. At one stage I had around 160 bonsai but now have about 40( having crept up from the 25 or 30 I should have)

The NBPCA has two Ash on display at the moment and will benefit from the experimentation I do on my own trees.

Grant

ahhhh nice grant i have thought about getting ash for a bonsai, northside actually had a couple of really nice stump ones for a good price but i wasnt sure how it would go in my climate further north not having seen them up here so wasnt quite sure.. any who, still look forward to seeing your tree and like i said you are still doing a great job looking after the national collection! keep up the great work. you deserve a medal mate


jamie