AusBonsai

Flooded gums in a forest are usually dead straight, and can be huge. They are also super fast growers and have large leaves. This doesn't appear to bode well for bonsai, but as it turns out they are quite fun to play with. This one I dug last Autumn. They appear to grow year round, but this can easily be controlled by stopping the fertiliser. The surprising thing is how easy it to get small leaves.
After digging May 2016 Today: And the Back: Cheers, Symon

Nice Symon,

Are you constantly tip pruning to achieve the recent photo (if so, how often) and / or are you controlling growth with limiting fertilisers?

Please keep posting this trees progression, I love our Bonsai Eucalypts.

Thanks,
Kevin

I reckon you nailed it.
Very "eucalyptus-looking" eucalyptus.
Well done in such short time too.

Great work Symon ,classic eucalyptus. . Shows what can be achieved ,always been concerned about leaf reduction.. Thanks for posting. Cheers John.

Thanks John and wrcmad I'm a big fan of both your work.

Kevin, I'm still working this out. At the first stage, even before I dug it up, to get a rough branching structure I let it grow wildly and cut back into hard wood. Each cut would give a change in direction or a bifurcation depending on what I wanted. This gave me the bare bones.

At this stage I am feeding (normal osmicote) and constant tip pruning. I do this most days as I water. On the top two thirds of the tree I try take off the tip as soon as possible after the first two leaves open. For the crown I will do a couple of cycles of tip pruning and growing and then I cut back hard. This usually results in four buds and I select the weakest pair and start again. As I am still developing the structure of the lower branches and they are less vigorous I am letting them run for several pairs of leaves before pruning.

Once I have the desired structure, good ramification and a balance of vigor across the whole tree I will try starving the tree of nutrients combined with tip pruning. This way I am hoping to get tiny leaves.

Below is an example of the leaf reduction you can get with just tip pruning and fertiliser. I am holding a normal adult leaf for scale. These tips are ready to prune now. Cheers, Symon

PS Check out the pot, Marie Hewartson custom made it for the tree. She does amazing work.

Thanks for the detailed response Symon.

Kevin

Beautiful tree Symon!

My favourite one of these is the big guys in nature is the beast just south of Forster.

::EDIT::
This one:
https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/th ... icnic-area

Yeah Jarad the grandis is a a fantastic tree, but if you are in that part of the world you should be surfing...Treachery, Celitos, Seven Mile...some here will know what I mean.
Cheers,Symon

when I'm up that way I'm usually camping at the ruins (where that guy got nibbled by the great white) and swimming or diving somewhere.

I'd also been wondering if these guys would make good bonsai material, thanks for showing its possible

Thats looking great delisea, a lovely start.