AusBonsai

I was gifted a few large Native trees late January, and after some trimming and wiring, this particular tree has gone crazy!(Rain has helped too, of course.)

What do I do with all these shoots? Any suggestions on species or variety would be helpful too, ta.

The wire was already cutting in after two weeks!

Many eucs seem to be fast growers when conditions suit. Sometimes too fast for me.
As with other plants you really need to remove excess shoots before they get a chance to cause undue thickening. Just keep any that may be useful to replace long branches or to add some branches where you need them. I have often had older branches die when new, vigorous shoots start growing near the base.

Many will have opinions on the species but the reality is there are so many species and many are superficially similar that it is almost impossible to tell one from another unless there are flower buds or seed capsules. To add confusion, most Eucs have juvenile foliage that is far different to the adult foliage and can look like a completely different species when young.
Looks like this one already has adult leaves. Also appears to be one of the smooth barked 'gum' group which will further narrow down the possible species for you.

It will be interesting to see how it responds to pruning and bonsai culture. Don't be surprised if branches sometimes die after pruning. That seems to be common and many Euc bonsai require regular restyling as bits die off.

Cheers Neil, I'll start removing them now...they're really going crazy everywhere!

This is an over all view before I wired it on Jan 26. It does appear to be a smooth-barked variety, for sure.

A really nice tree you have here Mel, looking forward to its future....

Just to add on the ID side of things the Euclid key is a fairly good resource for identifying Eucalyptus once you get your head around it. You should be able to narrow it down just by the leaves, bark and stems.
I have checked a few of mine out on there and it works fairly well but of course the more data you can input the better.

http://keyserver.lucidcentral.org:8080/ ... sp?keyId=2

Hey thanks Starfox, will check it out!

Cheers Pierre, they're going to be a challenge, I can see that. I'll look at repotting once this new growth hardens off, I think.

Hi Mel,

That's a nice tree, you should be able to have some fun with that. As shibui stated, you'll need to remove most of those new shoots. I thin them down to two - one for keeping and one spare - then choose the one you want to keep once you're happy it is strong enough. Be careful of shoots with strong upward growth at the base or along the length of any existing branches, as the branch can die back past that point. I also find growing sacrifice branches can be a problem as the tree can drop nearby branches pretty quickly. Balanced growth is the key, and not letting any growth get out of hand.

Cheers,
Matt.

Thanks Matt, I've done a clean out on two of these today, and yes, I took out the strongly upright growing ones from the base and the branches. All these trees are already a good size, so I don't think sacrifice branches will be necessary anyway, thank goodness. I'm learning slowly, and yes, agree, balanced growth seems to be the best option. Cheers!