AusBonsai

I bought this swampie a couple of months ago, and just need some pointers on what to do now (if anything) to get it looking like a half-decent tree one day. It was planted in a bonsai pot and had been sitting in a tray of water, and had a lot of roots that had grown through the bottom of the pot. I had to cut through some roots that were the same size as the drainage holes in the pot in order to get it out of the pot. I slipped the rest of the root ball into a box and let it recover; it lost quite a few leaves but has since put out a bunch of new growth and is looking quite happy.

I'm wondering what I should do now in terms of sorting out the branches / future direction. There are a few options that I can see:

1. Don't touch it for a year to put out growth and get nice and healthy

2. Cut off the existing branches and use the new growth to grow branches where and how I want them (wired down)

3. Use the existing branches and wire those down

4. Trunk chop somewhere and grow a new leader (it is quite tall and skinny, but I don't necessarily mind that - it's about 75cm tall at the moment)

5. Some/all of the above
As purchased
Out of the pot
Now
Possible inspiration

Hi Greg and welcome. If you want something like the inspiration photo you need to chop down low and grow a new leader on. Plenty of fertiliser and water and put it in a water tray if possible. I wouldn't worry about the branches yet - these bud prolifically so I would just concentrate on building the trunk.

Cheers Tony, I think you're right - a trunk chop is in order. I'm kind of thinking at the half-way point but I'll have a better look in the daylight tomorrow.

That's looking nice and healthy now, so a trunk chop at the end of Summer would probably be the go. That'll give it time to recover both this root prune and before the Winter slow down. They do heal quickly, so you should have a good bit of taper and a healed chop in a couple of years. Food and water and sunlight will be appreciated by the tree, and they will produce new shoots constantly, so while you're chasing a good trunk size, you can leave worrying about branches for a bit, imho.

G’day Greg,
Check the video at Wigerts Bonsai. Some great inspiration there. I don’t have a chance to copy and paste it right now but the link is in a thread I posted sometime back about my swamp cypress. Listen to those with more knowledge - but I reckon you could chop back now if you wanted and leave it in tray of water - no drama - better wet/soaking than drying out.


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Thanks Mark, I finally got around to watching this video - very helpful. The field-grown trees with knees are awesome (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YclDGuENWiA for those playing at home).

I ended up taking your advice and chopping now, at about the half way point. I have no idea how these things go from cuttings but I put the top half in my tiny greenhouse in some sphagnum moss. No harm in giving it a try.

Looking at the photo I'm wondering if I should've gone a little shorter...

Hi Greg I would cut 2/3 off the top. You will still have to do a few more chop and grow cycles - but it will be a good start. If you leave it at it's present height the tree will never get reasonable taper.

I repotted this one today, and took off a huge amount of roots - hopefully I haven't killed the poor thing. First I tried to untangle what was there, which included some thick 4cm roots that had wrapped around the old pot. Eventually I got the saw out and chopped off the bottom of the root ball.

Certainly keen, but i don't think you will have killed it unless it's exposed to freezing conditions or something goes wrong with the after care.

I've rooted hard wood cuttings of them as thick as my thumb before with no issue whatsoever, so with a bit of roots it should get through IMO.

Greg, how is the swampy going after the prune? I did something similar today and now am a bit concerned I may have gone to hard, like yours it had some very thick tangled roots.

Brown and droopy! But that's how it should be looking at this time of year I guess. Hopefully my harsh root prune just pushed it into dormancy and it'll reshoot in spring.

Happy to report on the survival of this one. Most of the branches died back but no big deal.

I've found that branch dieback is a perennial problem with swampies after pruning.

I'm sure there is some simple solution so I hope someone who knows more than us will put forward some tips for pruning to develop branches and ramification with less die back.