AusBonsai

Baeckea imbricata

This will be a learning experience. I have not grown these before. Apparently its indigenous to south of Sydney.

So far it has met the stringent checklist requirements for the competition:
Survived a heavy root prune....check
Seems disregarded by fauna/insects...check
Hasn't died so far....check

Cost: ~$4
Sutherland Shire council nursery

Wow. This is a good candidate for the lesser known award: 'Most likely to have grown the least in 3 years'.

I'm not sure if this is just slow growing material, or whether its just not suited for my conditions.
Overall it has very cute foliage, but clearly I have not done anything other than allow it to remain unimpressive.

This is painful. I have 2 of these in my collection. As Murphy would have it, the other one is growing well, yet this one is just really slow. I suspect the drainage isn't as good in this pot unlike the other specimen. I'll try to remember to repot it soon.

This is finally starting to develop a bit. Its really slow to grow.
I can't really cut back anything yet, otherwise its going to set it back a lot.

Hopefully it grows exponentially now that it is finally putting on some growth.

I'm starting to think Baeckea are actually the greatest genus for Bonsai over all other native material.
The ones that develop that ropy trunk with small foliage are amazing.
And they're actually a lot hardier than I would have thought. Plus they don't seem to mind having a lot of roots removed.

I haven't really done anything with this other than remove a lot of bar branching.
The drainage isn't terrific, but I'm reluctant to reduce anything further at the moment as its just starting to fill the pot now. (it was overtpotted)

Its finally starting to take off so I'm just going to allow it to grow more before I do something again around January and look at styling.

This is another species that I have fallen in love with. When you cut back and allow a lot of ramification to develop, they look stunning.

Not a lot to report on this one.... I've only removed the mass of shoots from the main trunk and trimmed back the outer areas.