AusBonsai

Hi,
I recently dug these bad boys from a vacant lot, they're clearly the offspring of the street trees in the area as they were scattered in the uncleared lot. The leaves are in a "trident" (fingers crossed) shape, and it's obviously deciduous.

Any ideas? The bark is fairly smooth and white and the parent trees have a rounded form. Also this is my first real collection of big stock - given i want to go for a fairly formal upright style with the suitable ones how far back should i cut? I'm guessing i should take off all the existing branches and let them start from scratch in spring? Just got them the other day and all i've really done is stuck them in 50-50 commercial potting mix and perlite/vermiculite (2:1), then given them a drink of seasol.

<EDIT> oops, working out this picture attaching stuff as i go. and apologies about the quality, my supposedly 8 mega pixel Canon didnt wanna come to the party.

SOLVED

Bloodgood London Plane - By alpineart

bump

Hi Birchman , its got me stumped .I dont believe its a trident or a maple .I'm leaning towards a Bloodgood London Plane . Any chance of a pic of the parent tree or trees in the area .Cheers Alpine

its a planetree, either london planetree or oriental planetree platanus occidentallis i beleive mate i would hazard a stab at it being the oriental one, i have one with leaves very much like that.

ah ok, they worthwhile for bonsai? I.e. how's the leaf reduction etc?

Thanks for the ID mate

hi mate,

as for bonsai cultivation i am still testing with them. they one i have went into dormancy up here so thats a good start for a deciduous tree in a sub tropical clime. leaf reduction i am unsure but cant see why not, generally they have massive leafs 10-15cm on mine after a hard cut back they come out 5cm hardened off so that is a good start.

i know they readily root from large cuttings, i chopped the trunk down into two sections both around 3-4cm thick and they readily struck roots just like a cutting.

jamie

Ok well i've got 7 pots of them, some multi-trunked some bolt upright so i might try some clip-and-grow and see what happens. Good practise at the very least

yeah i would have said plane tree aswell, good luck!

exactly right birch i cant see why they wont respond well to bonsai cultivation, so far the ones i have are doing well, just waiting for them to burst into life again, i reckon they will be similar to liquid amber regarding leaf size issues, but there is no reason as to why you cant grow them for the winter silhuoette appeal either. the autumn colour looks fantastic too, thats one thing i didnt get, my went a yellow but not that vibrant orange!

Yeah i love the orange!

That reminds me, this may be straying from this forum but should i cut the existing branches off? when doing upright styles on deciduous would you grow the tree as one keeping it in scale or would you fatten the trunk up then cut everything back after a year or two? Given i have a few to work with i might mix it up.. Still a bit new to this

it depends on what style you are after, if you want an informal upright style check this article out by harry harrington, it is well explained.

http://bonsai4me.com/AdvTech/ATdevelopi ... bonsai.htm

if you want something like a broom i would grow the trunk to the desired thickness you want and then chop it back to a stump and regrow all the branching.

other styles use slightly different techniques so it is good to learn. if they are just saplings though i would say to grow them on for a while to get some size to them unless you are going for a smaller tree, which with the bigger leaves might be a little dificult but would work.

possibly you could go with a group planting too, there isnt many group plantings round or seen over here, well i havent seen a great deal anyways

jamie

Great advice, sounds like i need to feed these guys like crazy and give them lots of sun come spring then.

Harry Harrington, great name