AusBonsai

Keen eyes will see that the seeds at the end are Eucalyptus Nicholli rather than a wattle, so they are getting their own thread.



I have to admit, I'm kinda dissappointed in the seed. It said they came in batches of 200 (and I was a little worried about how many gums I'd end up with!) but when I got the packet, i got maybe 20 seeds and a fair amount of fluff. I though a test few into the same batch on the 16th, which are now seedlings, but the main lot went into the ground wiht the wattles.




I'm kinda interested in trying out a forest grouping with a bushfire thing. I know there are issues with burning small trees, but I've done some expereiments (I picked up a burnt couple of sticks from a local burnoff) and found I can quite easily draw the charocal onto the trees. There's also smoke drawing (pretty much as it sounds, using the smoke from a flame to 'paint' an image), and I'm keen to play around with both of those.

For those interested, here's a link to a smoke painter - https://michaelfennell.com/smoke-process/

We'll see if I can get something working in a few years...

Haven’t heard of smoke painting before, thanks for the link. I’m not sure I follow, though - how will you work this in with a bonsai?

Love the ground growing plan. It’ll be interesting to compare how this affects germination and initial growth. I’m also growing nicholii. Yet to sprout, maybe too cool still.

Hey there,

My thinking is a big fire will burn from the top down, lotsa damage to the tree. But a grass or bit off fire will burn from the bottom up. I’m wondering if I can ‘fake the damage’ by drawing on the trunk with charcoal and then smudging the lines using the smoke painting effect. The idea is that I’ll have a ‘fire damaged’ look without actually burning the tree.

That’s the vision, have to do some experimenting to see if it actually works…

I'll be interested to see how it goes!

quick update. I was too eagar, there was a frost. I am now the proud owner of two Eucalyptus Nicholli, a bunch of grass seedlings that were trying to convince me they were wattles and a couple of maples. I've never grown Maples, they just magically appeared...

I can't make a forest with two plants, so I want to grab some more. Given my dissappointment with the seller, I"m keen for recommendations if folk have had good experineces?

Jas

https://www.olelantanaseeds.com.au/prod ... seed-x200/

I've bought from that store before with good results. Nindethana would probably be the best source but looks like they don't have nicholli in stock at the moment.

Cheers,
Dave.

Thanks Dave,

I got some from them and planted them up.
Also, it turns out some of the gums shrugged off the frost, I now have 8 from the original batch. They range from tiny ones to the monsters.

Good stuff. Good luck with them. The Eucalypts/Corymbias I've planted for the comp are going to need bigger pots again soon They're strong growers.

So the a number of seeds were ready for the ground, they got the same treatment as the wattles, lopped off the tap root and popped them into the ground.


Ready for work


happy in their new home

But the fun stuff are these. These are the ones I planted inside back in June and they survived an unexpected frost when I put them into the ground. I had thoughts about making a forest planting for them. But I also have chickens who turn out to love new gum leaves. They helpfully defoliated these gums time and time again. For a while I considered them to be my sacrifice plants as it kept the chickens from munching on anything else. But it turns out gums love being eaten by chickens???


They got seriously bushy.

I decided for everyone's benefit to lock the chickens up for a bit (they normally free range), thin gums out a bit and give them some space. While I was at it, I lopped the tap root off on any that was thinking about it.



I might make the forest grouping from the newer batch and see what these do as indivudals.