AusBonsai

A great season of the year- Eucalyptus bark-peel season! This tree made a massive base fairly quickly, but the top is top-dominant, with long internodes, and a habit of not budding where you cut it back to - I haven't worked out how to drive it yet. Great red tips and tones in the twigs, robust and grows with a mind of its own. I'll keep the fallen bark and crunch it up, with some pruned dried leaves, to dress the soil if I display it.

Gavin

Great base and wonderful colours in the foliage. Eucalypts can be frustrating but I’m glad you’re persisting.

Dressing the soil with bark and leaves is a great idea!

Great looking tree Gavin !!

This tree is off to a great start and I'm liking the red pot combination too. Was it an inspired choice or just a case of right size on hand?

My camera is making things look a bit more intensively red than they are... The pot is Vietnamese, somewhat roughly made, and the reddish tones suit the tree quite well. It won't suit most trees...

The pot is a little deeper than my usual pot proportions - I think Eucs and Acacias both need a bit more room than a lot of exotics. Many Eucs will outgrow their bonsai pot in 3 or 4 years... They can be beasts.

Gavin

GavinG wrote: ↑January 30th, 2023, 2:09 pm

This tree made a massive base fairly quickly, but the top is top-dominant, with long internodes, and a habit of not budding where you cut it back to - I haven't worked out how to drive it yet.


Gavin

Gavin
In a club meeting years ago I postulated that this problem with Eucalyptus (I don't grow them) could be possibly solved by folding the shoot where you would like it to bud until it breaks - but doesn't separate. This might result in maintaining some vigor in the stem while it buds at the break and then go ahead and remove the broken part after it does. I have no idea whether anyone has tried this or if it would work or not.
Perhaps another thing worth trying is to defoliate the whole branch except for the very tip (keep that extending) Then if you have buds break at the defoliated areas, you can cut off at that point when they are beginning to extend. This technique is used on Japanese Yew.
If that works you might need to tweak exactly where (or even when - eg; young or more mature) you defoliate the branch. I have a feeling keeping the tip alive is the key. There must be a way to crack the Eucalyptus conundrum.

Gavin

Love the tree and the pot.

Treeman thanks for the tip I shall try it on some of my eucs.

Edward

That is a great looking tree, Gavin, thanks for sharing.

Thanks also Mike for your suggestions. I will give them a try to see if I can bulk up my eucs.

Regarding this technique:

Perhaps another thing worth trying is to defoliate the whole branch except for the very tip (keep that extending) Then if you have buds break at the defoliated areas, you can cut off at that point when they are beginning to extend. This technique is used on Japanese Yew.

Pierre uses that successfully on Ficus benjamina as well, also I've seen Harry Harrington mention it in regards to Buxus.

Cool looking tree Gavin .

Regarding

melbrackstone wrote: ↑February 7th, 2023, 8:57 am
Regarding this technique:

Perhaps another thing worth trying is to defoliate the whole branch except for the very tip (keep that extending) Then if you have buds break at the defoliated areas, you can cut off at that point when they are beginning to extend. This technique is used on Japanese Yew.

I doubt this technique would work well . Every gum that I have grown wants to grow to the sky ,the only time I have seen backbudding on a Euc is when the tip is removed . Euc’s shed the lower leaves ( and branches ) naturally when they have grown enough to not need the lower growth .
Damaging the tip by bending it may be a useful technique if there are no lower leaves . Not that I have tried it . I leave a few leaves on the branch when I cut branches to help ensure survival of the branch . If I cut a branch back to no leaves chances are it will die back to the trunk . Or tip it and then prune back to the new shoots .

Cheers Sno.

I doubt this technique would work well . Every gum that I have grown wants to grow to the sky ,the only time I have seen backbudding on a Euc is when the tip is removed . Euc’s shed the lower leaves ( and branches ) naturally when they have grown enough to not need the lower growth .
Damaging the tip by bending it may be a useful technique if there are no lower leaves . Not that I have tried it . I leave a few leaves on the branch when I cut branches to help ensure survival of the branch . If I cut a branch back to no leaves chances are it will die back to the trunk . Or tip it and then prune back to the new shoots .

I find it depends on the species.

Many Eucs when I've tried to encourage back budding on the branches by cutting the ends off, they can just die back to the trunk altogether.
The only thing I've noticed with these painful varieties is that you will have better luck cutting back the branches if you cut them back when its still sending out new shoots. Otherwise, if you wait to cut back the branches until after the new shoots have hardened off, it seems to decrease the chances of having the branch back-bud and may result in the entire branch dying off.

Yet with other varieties, I have had much better luck and they will shoot well from branches being cut-back at any time of the warmer seasons regardless of waiting for the new shoots to harden off.

I haven't tried reducing all the foliage on the branch and leaving just the end tips. But on the flip side, when there are less leaves on the branches, it often seems to reduce the vigour in the branch itself and occasionally dies off as well. From my experience, the more foliage I leave on Eucalyptus branches, the more success I have of keeping the branch alive. If I wait until the branches are about 7mm to 1 cm thick before I cut back hard, it greatly increases the chances of the branch staying alive. But this doesn't really help if you want a thinner branch network.

Rory wrote: ↑February 7th, 2023, 12:17 pm Many Eucs when I've tried to encourage back budding on the branches by cutting the ends off, they can just die back to the trunk altogether.

Make sure you tip the whole tree at the same time even if you don’t want to shorten the other branches . And keep the water up to them . I have had trees sulk for a couple of months after doing this before they pop everywhere . You still occasionally lose branches but that is the part I call character building . I live in a Euc forest and not one tree here that is over ten years old does not have some dead bits on it .

Sno wrote: ↑February 7th, 2023, 4:02 pm

Rory wrote: ↑February 7th, 2023, 12:17 pm Many Eucs when I've tried to encourage back budding on the branches by cutting the ends off, they can just die back to the trunk altogether.

Make sure you tip the whole tree at the same time even if you don’t want to shorten the other branches . And keep the water up to them . I have had trees sulk for a couple of months after doing this before they pop everywhere . You still occasionally lose branches but that is the part I call character building . I live in a Euc forest and not one tree here that is over ten years old does not have some dead bits on it .

Yeah I know what you mean. Its a very common trait of Eucs. Its often after a long period of drought too, that you see the die-back on the outer tips of Eucs. But then its also random on entire branches.
A lot of natives will shoot back well from just having one branch cut-back, but I agree that it can be hit and miss with Eucs. I get reluctant to reduce the entire structure to promote back budding on a particular branch. It would be interesting to trial it and see the benefits if it is a better way to get back-budding on most Eucs.

I find that it is hard to get back budding down low on the trunks of old material with Port Jackson Figs / Moreton Bay Figs / Banksia integrifolia / Banksia ericifolia, and I usually have to trunk-chop to get any new buds down low. But with Eucs, they often usually produce a flush all down the trunk after a trunk-chop.

But I'll keep that in mind and trial an overall reduction if I have Euc branches that are too bare. Cheers Sno

Sno, it strikes me even in suburban Canberra how most mature Eucs have dead branches everywhere. The lush, plush ones don't seem to as much as, frinstance, E. mannifera. I think I will need to grow and develop branches with the aim of "deading" them later. The damn thing will probably do that by itself, but if I do it, I get to choose where the dead bit is. Each Euc has its own pattern of growth, and will drive you mad, each in its own special way...

I'll try and get some photos.

Gavin

Dead branch photos. I think this is what I want for my Euc. bonsai.


Also, this is what happens under Eucs in the wild. Well, the wilds of suburban Canberra... Gavin