Gifted Shimpaku

[alpineart]

This is a large Shimpaku that caught my eye 5 years ago

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. The owner had landscaped her front garden with junipers and I suggested she keep them trimmed as they grow rather large . Avril decided it was time to remove a few to remake the raised garden beds , she had offered over the years to allow me to take cuttings off this Shimpaku .
We have exchange item over the years , pots and plants , so this was offered up last night . I took a quick look at the trunk on dusk , yep' 50-70mm thick 1.5m wide , I decided to soak it with seasol and call on a knowlegable fellow who has the years of experience with Shimps .

This morning I hit it like a freight train before sunrise , growing in sand it was out within the hour , not as easy as I thought , a bloke must be getting old or soft

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. With a good close root mass and plenty of fine feeder roots I decided to pot it up rather than throw it into the prepared scoria grow bed

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. With a mix of scoria ,diatomite and composted pine bark it was laid to rest in this 700mm oval tray/pot .

I have secured it into the pot with wire and watered it again with powerfeed , here's hoping it survives the ordeal .

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Finished ready for a wee trim , 100 cuttings should be quite easy as there is at least that many good strong tips available for the taking .

The main trunk to my surprise is in excess of 100mm at the base with a 50-60 mm trunk with good taper coming off that at 45 degree , make for a good Shohin

Many thanks to Avril for the gift and to Neil from Shibui bonsai for the heads up on aftercare sometimes it helps to ask , all in all worthwhile getting out and active before daybreak to collect my newly aquired gift .

Cheers Alpineart

[Grant Bowie]

Nice catch; very jealous!

Good to see some big Shimpaku material as it is so slow to thicken.

Grant

[kcpoole]

Lovley pickup

Shodu recover nicely in your care and be rather spectacular on day

Ken

[Raymond]

. Nice score Alpine. Loving the huge specimens in the background also...

[alpineart]

Hi Grant , this was purchased 5 years ago at the local hardware for $45 . It had a 20-25mm trunk and around 400mm high with multi leaders . Avril's raised garden beds were soft clay bases on top of river wash typical of the soil makeup round here close to the river flats , she filled them with cheap potting mix @$4 a bag , more like fine black sandy loam disquised as potting mix.

The Juni's were planted into these raised beds and topped dressed with cow manure at around 2-3 inches thick , then top dressed with lucerne hay at around 2 thick , no added ferts or pesticides are used on her gardens . This was done anually , the Shimpaku was cut back every second year by 50% hence the offer for cutting .

Avril removed the other 3 junipers herself and felt the strain after transplanting them in the rear garden , {crikey it was a task and a half for a young fella like me } so this one was offered to me . I cant get my forefingers and thumbs to touch around the base but a home made guage measured above the first 2 branches showed 95mm x 75mm The two base branches exit the trunk at ground level . Once removed I expect the base to be 110mm x 90mm not a bad fattening process for the 5 years it spent in the ground .

I think i might just set up a grow bed for Shimpaku along the above lines .


Cheers Alpine

[alpineart]

Hi kc , mate you know me i can kill olives , here's hoping it does survive. Rather than chop it back i think i will just set a few layers and take heaps of cuttings .Plenty of work involved over the next few days

Hi Raymond , very nice score been hunting far and wide for a nice trunk , this was a gift of great proportions . Mate i had to move Mountains to fit this in , Mt Alpineart and Mt Gambier, my huge olives . The huge Phoenix grafted Shimpaku looks tiny compared to this tree.

Cheers Fella's .Alpine

[MoGanic]

Score!

Good friend you have there! Looking forward to seeing what you do with this beast.

No cutting of the foliage hey? Any method of keeping up the humidity to lessen the load on the roots??

Cheers,
Mo


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[Wayne R]

This tree has enormous potential and I hope it gets through the initial transplant in good shape.

My success rate with cuttings is abysmal (although I do way better with layers) so I'd be real interested in following how you take/grow cuttings from this tree.

[alpineart]

Hi Mo' excellent score and she is a lovely old lady.Yes there will be cutting , in the cuttings but I would like to hold onto as much foliage for layers .It will be misted over the next month or so and limited watering BUT NO DRYING OUT , the root mass was very good in the fine feeder department , I basically only severed the roots growing downward which was all but 10 at the most and the largest being 15mm .

Hi Wayne R , it has an enormous amount of potentual in the layers and cuttings before the real test begins . I have never had a success at layers on junipers but it was a topic at our last club meeting . Its good to have a teacher and fellow member like Neil around to show the tricks and treats of the simple process he uses . I have layered many species and being fairly young I guess it will be just another walk in the park on this tree .

Cheers Guys Alpine

[Andrew F]

Any chance you can document the aftercare and pruning process please Alp. I have a large shimp ear marked in a neighbours garden I just need to approach the owner first

[xIIRevoEvoS]

thats alot of branching. Nice pick

[Mount Nasura]

Look foward to seeing a trunk line! All the best.

[MoGanic]

Hi Mo' excellent score and she is a lovely old lady.Yes there will be cutting , in the cuttings but I would like to hold onto as much foliage for layers .It will be misted over the next month or so and limited watering BUT NO DRYING OUT , the root mass was very good in the fine feeder department , I basically only severed the roots growing downward which was all but 10 at the most and the largest being 15mm .

Cheers Guys Alpine

Mate thats good to hear! Peter Tea has had a shimpaku survive with practically no roots by misting it after collecting for a year, so I'm sure you're on track given how many roots you have to play with.

I think we're all dying to see the trunk line, but get it healthy and layered first and then treat us all to a show after wards haha.

Cheers mate


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[alpineart]

Hi Andrew F , mate I keep pics of all material just don't have the time to update topics like in the past . With over 10,000 Oon the computer and 20,000 on discs all my work good , bad and ugly has been photographed , sorting through and finding indiviual pics is too big a task now . I hope to update this one .

Hi Revo' with around 30 main branches selected to layer there will at least 50% left on the trunk , plenty of new shoots as many as 100 could be removed for cuttings leaving the main plant standing 1.2m high or 1.8 wide .

Hi Mount Nasura be a while before the trunk is exposed at least a growing season for the layers, no good hacking this bugger. Getting older and wier , well just a little .

Hi Mo' as i have said plenty of work to find the trunk but I will expose it as soon as posible . I could go all out and Phoenix graft it onto a dead juni' trunk still have half a dozen laying around but Iwill have plenty of layers hopefully to achieve a nice few grafts.This has a better chance the My greatest challenge tree's as I'm on my feet a bit better and the weather is a bit kinda.

Cheers Guys .Alpine

[Webos]

You've documented for us your history of losing massive amounts of stock to high temperatures every summer. Why not put this tree in a deeper pot and in a finer mix in order to protect it from drying out next summer. When summer comes around only 9 months from now, this tree will still have a weakened root system and will need to be protected from drying out too much.. This shallow pot and an very coarse soil mix is not going to be helpful in protecting that weakened root system.