AusBonsai

hey everyone

today i collected a crepe myrtle there were aprox 20 shoots coming from the one point, i had in mind of making a forrest or clump style bonsai but found something much better

i saw it there growing in a large pile of excavated soil so i thought it cant be that old but i think it had been dug and dumped and kept on growing it had 2 root systems the old and a new one at ground level
i didn't get as much root as i would have liked i wasn't expecting a lower root system that far down fingers crossed it survives

the backhoe made short work of it tho
any thoughts or comments are more than welcome

cheers
matt

Wow, looks good.

Hi matty-j, nice piece of machinery and the only way to collect big trunks .

I have a Crepe Myrtle here i collected a couple of years ago , it hasn't sprouted yet so they seem to sulk after collecting or mine certainly has . Its still green from top to bottom , so i would simply pot it up and let it recover .

Very nice material and i hope it grows on for you , i see a lot down the street here that have numerous suckers coming up from the base and roots , only hope this season mine sprouts a shoot or two .

Look forward to seeing if and how long it takes to sprout or back bud into something usable .

Cheers Alpine.

In my experience, crepe myrtles will shoot from the top only. It is very difficult to get them to shoot low down on the trunk.

This one looks like a great broom candidate to me. I'd be cutting all of those long sticks a centimetre above where the bark changes colour and working from there.

Good luck

Adam

Lovely shovel! Can you come on my next dig?

Plenty of roots on that one no worries. Pot up and Seasol 3 times a week till it shoots. I caollected some last winter and they are roaring along.

Ken

Webos wrote:In my experience, crepe myrtles will shoot from the top only. It is very difficult to get them to shoot low down on the trunk.

This one looks like a great broom candidate to me. I'd be cutting all of those long sticks a centimetre above where the bark changes colour and working from there.

Good luck

Adam

I sometimes wish I could have one of your varieties Adam. Mine continually shoot from the base and roots, even a serious root prune I carried out sprouted shoots in the recent summer, (i'm now waiting to find a boy riding around my backyard on a giant white furry dragon with a dogs head (Never Ending Story )).

Matty, I dug one from the neighbours this time last year and washed off all the soil and pruned off a lot of roots. Through summer it powered although it was in a mix that proved to be too open or I could not keep the water up

No doubt though that the roots will be all in there waiting to be pot bound by the end of this year if I don't take and do a repot. This time around I will be putting some more crepe myrtle friendly ingredients into the mix.

Yours looks awesome , well done and good luck with it I think KC has the care sheet right for you Looking forward to seeing where it goes

Bloody awesome matt!!!!
thats a great trunk

hey everyone

thought i would update!
when i was removing shoots and unwanted trunks i removed one with a few roots and potted it up and it is covered in buds!!!!!!
none on the stump that i want tho
cheers
matt

Give it time
Mine are only shooting this week

Ken

Mine last week.

nice myrtle mate

ive got myrtles along the driveway that haven't started shooting yet, im in Sydney.

Interesting how different the times are on tree's across our nation.
I would have thought with the NSW heat that you guys would have been well advanced?

Locally here in Melb..
2 of mine have already popped and one is in already in nice fresh new leaves.
I might take a quick pic tonight to post if I remember.

Cheers,

hey everyone

we have buds!!!! maybe not where i wanted them but ill take what i can get

i did a scratch test and its still very green right up the top right at the cuts so hopefully soon it will shoot like crazy
cheers
matt

Don't worry you'll get heaps of buds.

just a update! this crepe has gone from strength to strength and put on a lovely show to boot
i removed all the flowers and gave it a good prune, it has lost a lot of dead wood there was a fair bit of soft wood in there, this weekend i will remove any soft rotting wood and hit it with some earls
cheers
matt