AusBonsai

Hi all!

Taking a challenge and risk with this project. Saw a free peach blossom (Prunus persica 'Versicolor') up on market in town and took the chance to try a large bonsai project.

Not ideal timing of year to dig up, but I couldn't be picky with a free tree like this, that was planted 8 years ago (unsure of how big it was when planted).

Looking for advice and tips on how to give it the best chance at surviving firstly, but also backbudding.
If it backbuds and give new branches to create taper, I am wondering if this would look good with some carving?

Any advice would be appreciated along the journey.

Cheers

A free tree is a free tree at the end of the day, i had one as a garden tree but it suckered like crazy and i eventually removed it, so keep an eye out for suckering from the root stock

Other than that your best bet is probably going to be doing thread or approach grafting if you want specific branching in specific places. Prunus generally backbud really well after hard cut backs into bare wood, but not in any predictable way other than usually right at the location of the cut.

What you've done so far looks good as far as letting it recover from the shock of transplant, i wouldn't do any more work on it for now. Have a think about what you might like the tree to look like in the future.It'll be a long

Two options i see:

1. Kind of work with what you have, but the fork to wards the top i'd be keen on removing at a minimum as it's not adding anything. Have a large broom style kind of thing

2. Eventually work to cutting back to the lowest left branch in "potted and cut back" photo, or the lowest right that's mostly obscured in the photo, and start a more wild style tree from there with thread grafting/ approach grafting onto that branch.


There are other options too, just two obvious ones that leap out

Thanks Tim, I wasn't planning on doing any more work to the tree until it recovers after winter. Ideally I will gradually reduce the height a bit more to be ariunc 100cm (currently 130cm) and select a couple of the thick branches as the main 2 or 3 and start taper from there. Unsure which is the front side yet, I'll decide that once I see some growth after recovery.

I will probably need to thread graft to try for a certain look to the tree. Would that be best done with a small nursery tree as the thread surrogate or try and use an airlayer from the the same tree?

No need to buy another one, let the shoots run and they will be whippy enough to use that year’s growth curved back around in a smooth arc and run back through, as long as you don’t actually damage the shoot in the bend it should be fine

Great. Hopefully it gets some low shoots that I can bend around toward the base.
I'm guessing it might be a few weeks before noticing any new growth or recover from the transplant, do unlikely I'll get much growth until next spring.

I’m not sure about peach specifically, but it can be advisable to give a collected tree a whole year of growth before doing any further work. Depends of course on your tree and how conservative you plan on being.

Thanks Andy,
I'm taking this tree as a long term project, so I won't rush the process and will let it recover and get some growth back before anything major works to it. First thing is helping it survive the major trauma of transplant and cutback.

I did a half strength Seasol the day after it was transplanted to help encourage root repair and growth. I'll do another half strength again a week later, I think that's what the Seasol instructions recommended for a transplanted tree. Since it's kate summer and it cmgot a big cutback the same time, I want to do everything I can to help recovery.

I don't really work with Prunus as where I live is warm and humid, but I would suggest not even thinking about doing any work on this tree for at least 18 months. Give it a whole season of growth (next Spring until the following Autumn) without even pruning it so that it can reestablish its roots and redirect sap flow. Any work on it before then, no matter how careful you are, will put stress on newly establishing roots that could mean the tree gives up and carks it. You have a good start. Patience is the key.