AusBonsai

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i know your with me so who else is in ????

jamie [/quote]

I have 3 juni's in pots, the are all about 1 1/2 ft long. As soon as I read this thread yesterday I went straight down to the garden. They are now twisted and curved to their limit and it was great fun to do, no analysing where one branch should sit....just a great big tangle What a great idea
cheers Loretta

good girl!!!

are they in pots or the ground? either or feed them up plenty of water and sunshine and watch them grow! next year you can look at it again and remove the wire and rewire then the same, heavy feed water and sunshine and leave it for a year

I have 2 that I am doing this too and a few more tubestock to come, the two bigger ones i have left were around 10-20mm trunk thickness so was a little harder, the tube stock should be easy to bend and should be pretty happy when they go in the ground

Jamie

Jamie wrote:good girl!!!

are they in pots or the ground? either or feed them up plenty of water and sunshine and watch them grow! next year you can look at it again and remove the wire and rewire then the same, heavy feed water and sunshine and leave it for a year
Jamie

They are in pots with lots of growing room. After I wired them I left them to rest for the day in the shade under my pergola.
This morning my bower turned up as usual and nearly went frantic when he couldn't find them...he then spotted my cuttings under the table and went for them...so I had to shift them too. I put the pots back today so hell be happy in the morning, he does a really good job of keeping the dead needles pruned.
cheers Loretta

This thread is excellent, i have just now had time to read both threads, and just from ell that myself, and ones persons experience i can tell that me and a lot of other people are going to take some very useful information from it.

Great trees, and fantastic information.

Gareth

hi guys,

im not sure if i mentioned but when you are doing the initail wiring and twisting try get a very low bend as close to the base as possible, an over exagerated bend will give you a nice curve low on the trunk for later when it thickens

i recommend that you give the tree at least 4 years from the tube stock start of growing, with out doing shari work, after that, only do a small shari to start with to allow the sap flow to divert, when i did a few of these last year i ran a shari on both sides going up 2 turns around the tree and it was just to much, also i had noticed that if you do one shari on one side going 1 turn around, then wait a few weeks before you do the opposing shari allowed the tree to "recover" a lot better. also with the shari, try not to make it look like a baber shop pole, running the shari more spread out then a bit tighter and random will make a much more interesting tree

Jamie

hi guys

Levuccio asked the other day about seeing some of the tubestock John has been selling, and the process of what the go is, I have taken a few progression shots that will help with seeing what i have done

these process pictures have all been taken from the same "front" from the first pic all the way through. makes it a little easier to see whats happening, sorry about the couple of blurry or over exposed pics, the light was up and down today with cloud cover plus my shaky hands dont help!
first things first, for this sized whip I have used a 3mm wire, it is aluminium, i have found that this silver wire is a little easier to bend with but holds just aswell which is exactly what is needed for this. so wired up then the rest of the whip which was a little small for that sized wire has had 1mm wire used right to the tip ( not in picture the 1mm wire)
this step is the first bend, it is very important to get one as low down as possible, this will make styling a lot easier down the track as the movement will begin at the bottom and when the shari starts in 4-5 years time it will also help with the twisting of the trunk and live vein/deadwood areas.
even in the picture being 2 d, more bends have been added to go back up with the line but it also moves to the back aswell, its very important to put movement in, in all directions, left, right, front back, up, down.
even more bends and twists into the trunk, i am bending this shot back on itself then towards the front.
this has gone back to the rear then out to the right again, it is best to try and be completly random with this as we are trying to instill natural harsh conditions in the wild into a completly man made/grown tree.
more twisting, you can see the foliage is starting to get like a big mess, that wont be a problem it will sort itself out in time and natural selection of the sapling.
coming back up on itself, this is the start to an "apex" the apex will change many times over the period of growing.
this pic shows where the 1mm wire was used on two of the brancehs that had hardened off, using it to get more movement in there.
and the last couple of bends.
these two are to try and show the line of the trunk a little closer, sorry it is a little bit hard to see a combo of bad light and shaky hands
and finally in the ground with all his other mates to be fed well and plenty of time to do what they do. the wire will be left on untill absolutly necessary to take it off, rewiring these trunks is not only frustrating but very difficult so best to over exxagerate the cirves and bends as when these thinken the bends will be a little more subtle.

hopefully this has helped those in the process to the start of these, obviously you can get the trunk thicker a little quicker by combining two, three or four whips together, braid them a little if need be but make sure the bark on there trunks is touching or very close, then reassess the thickness of wire needed to bend the thicker trunk, these will fuse over time, i would say they would be well on there way to being fused after 4-5 years.

I have one or two shimpaku left that I did exactly the same thing to as this one but they had some bigger trunks, I will get some pics tomorrow of that

hope this has been a help to anyone that reads it this is the way I have been playing with the techniques so far.

jamie

Great post Jamie, just what I needed, thanks for that.

How long would you leave it growing without doing any shaping?

And how much would you fertilize them?

Btw love this forum!

hi mate,

after the initial shaping which was the process I just showed, I will leave the tree to grow strong for at least a year, always checking on the wire to make sure it doesnt cut in heavy feeding, chook poo, slow release in/on the soil, and liquid feed every week at recommended dilution plus what else takes my fancy at the time

after the year it will probably be ready for some wire to be removed, possibly not it all depends on how fast they actually grow. the more time the wire can hold the whip in position the better as it will hold the initial shaping. some people actually do the shaping one bend per year which can be a good way to build them too.

cheers

Hi
I was wondering if anyone has tried this method on any natives like wattles or casuarina?
I love the look and really want to work with natives.
Are there any other species that anyone could suggest to try it on?
Cheers Daniel

Daniel,

I've done some casurina 'cunningham' about a year ago, with the nice foliage I am sure of a positive outcome.

My only concern is that deadwood on casurina can rot.

We'll have to see how it all turns out.

BTW Yarralumla nursery always has the tubestock so pick some up and give it a try.

Thanks Scott
I might just have to head to yarralumla on my way home this afternoon
I also recall reading in one of Pup's threads that burning helps to harden the deadwood and helps to prevent rot. It might be worth trying to maybe heat the wood without actually burning it. Not sure if it would do the same thing I might do some research and let you know.
Daniel

I find some of the natives are not as flexible, even small ones tend to snap when bent.

Casuarina shodu be fine, but the wattles you will have trouble as the branches are quite brittle
I fyou can get them before the harden off and appy wirle real loose you would be ok

Ken

ozzy wrote:I find some of the natives are not as flexible, even small ones tend to snap when bent.

I too have had the same problem, so I let mine 'dry-out' a bit before bending and that helped a lot.

Except for the ones that 'died-out' (only 3 from around 50 or so...)

I have some casuarina torulosa stock that I have twisted into knots I am not sure how they will turn out as the foliage is not as nice as juniper but it was very easy to get them twisted up as very young plants. Outcome remains to be seen, ask me in 5 years
Craigw