Casuarina cunninghamiana 1

[Rory]

Progression thread : Casuarina cunninghamiana 1

I was impatient with waiting years to develop a thick base on a cunninghamiana. So I purchased this from Plants Plus (formerly Cumberland State Forest Nursery in Castle Hill).
Cost: $29

I love Stevens big cunninghamiana and wanted a biggish one too. I have many younger ones developing, mainly for group plantings. It absolutely thrives in the soil mix from Bonsai World at Jilliby. All my casuarina are grown in their soil mix. I use 50% course and 50% standard, which they love. I fertilize (when I can remember), and other than that they get a lot of nutrients as they are grown basically in the bush, letting their roots penetrate into the ground. I am very pleased at how fast this casy grows.


This photo was taken 18.08.2016



This photo was taken 17.03.2017

[Rory]

This photo was taken 01.05.2018
Its fun working on this one. Love cunninghamianas

[boom64]

Fantastic growth Rory. Sacrifice at the base or part of the master plan ? Cheers John.

[Watto]

Mmm, two years, most impressive.

[Rory]

Fantastic growth Rory. Sacrifice at the base or part of the master plan ? Cheers John.

Hi John...you obviously noticed I started a bit of movement at the base with that shoot too. It is indeed in preparation for the master plan
My goal has always been to best represent raw natural beauty in my trees (as best as possible in bonsai). You being the first to comment on this thread is quite fitting, as it is the particular native styling of yours and Peterh that I adore so much and set as my personal benchmark.
Being ground grown it produced a mass of shoots from the base, as you can see from the scarring that was left after the removal of the others.

Mmm, two years, most impressive.

Hi Watto...I prefer to ground grow natives in the initial growing stage, as was the case with this one. With Casuarina and Eucs, you can almost tell the exact week the roots hit 'paydirt'. Interestingly I have not fertilized this much (a couple of times in 2 years with slow release pellets), but being ground grown I don't really bother much. The only trap with ground growing is not to leave the ground roots for more than a few seasons at a time before you lift and cut, or they can sometimes divert energy to the ground roots and the radial roots suffer. From my experience this is particularly evident with Eucs.

[Matt S]

Love your Casuarina threads Rory, and it's great you're not shaping them to look like pines.

Do you have any particular wild trees you have for inspiration? I admit that most of the Casuarina's in my area are pretty uninspiring, the best I saw were in the Flinders Rangers but I don't have any pictures to refer to and it's a long drive!

Matt.

[Rory]

Thanks Matt,

I want to style them for what they are.

The giant casuarinas that grow as solitary trees throughout all the paddocks around the Williamstown RAAF airbase and back towards Newcastle are amazing.
I asked my wife if I could pull over and take a few photos last time and she looked at me in disbelief.
But if you ever get a chance, a lot of those are breath-taking.

[delisea]

Hi Rory,
Great to see these threads. I still think you should cover the scars up...
My family just roll their eyes as I stare at trees (while I should be looking at the road). They don't get it.
Cheers,
Symon

[Rory]

I had help from a large Gum tree, which dropped a 2 metre, 2 inch thick limb onto this casy late last year. It sheared off the 2nd trunk at the base, and scarred the trunk as well. It bent the entire tree down into the pot and has helped give it a more natural look. Thank you ferocious wind and limb drop, I couldn't have done it without you - you're making this natural styling easy for me.
So apart from the sarcasm, I have also included a photo of my latest efforts to try and deveop mulit trunks from the damaged area, albeit now with added scarring.

This photo was taken 28.02.2019

[Rory]

Cas Cunn 1-01 18Aug2016.jpg

18Aug2016

Cas Cunn 1-02 17Mar2017.jpg

17Mar2017

Cas Cunn 1-03 01May2018.jpg

01May2018

Cas Cunn 1-04 02Oct2018.jpg

02Oct2018

Cas Cunn 1-05 28Feb2019.jpg

28Feb2019

Cas Cunn 1-06 20Feb2020.jpg

20Feb2020

Cas Cunn 1-07 03Mar2021.jpg

03Mar2021

I haven't done anything with this for a while, as I'm just allowing it to grow and age. I'll probably work it hard next Summer.

[Rory]

I haven't done anything with this one except grow and cut-back.

Cas Cunn 1-08 10Jan2022.jpg

10 Jan 2022

[Keels]

I like the progress on this casuarina. I have a couple that I'm trying to develop similar as well.

[Rory]

You know its been raining non-stop for a month with constant humidity .... when your Casuarina air layers itself.

Casy.jpg

[melbrackstone]

Crikey, is it telling you the mix it's in is too wet??? What's going on there?

[Rory]

Crikey, is it telling you the mix it's in is too wet??? What's going on there?

Just constant humidity and cloud and rain. Central coast is a basin of humidity normally, but with these conditions its even more so.
My figs love it, as they send out aerial roots all the time. The mix is almost pure sand with this one, so it drains quickly.

Occasionally casys send out roots like this near the surface, but up high is only if its been damp conditions for a long extended period of time.