AusBonsai

kcpoole wrote: My Big Crabapple. Has been hit relly hard in this hot weather so hope it will be OK

I quoted this from another post in the forum about tools. I didn't want to pollute the topic with an off-topic reply so started a new thread.

Original Topic: viewtopic.php?f=96&t=692

I had the same problem a few weeks back when we were hit by a mini heat wave. Most of the leave were badly burnt and what leaves were left are badly scared. I defoliated the whole tree and it has grown back fantastically. Even a few flowers popped up.

I live in Sydney.

Brenden

brenden wrote: I had the same problem a few weeks back when we were hit by a mini heat wave. Most of the leave were badly burnt and what leaves were left are badly scared. I defoliated the whole tree and it has grown back fantastically. Even a few flowers popped up.

Thats a good way of getting a second lot of flowers, i also have a friend with a large crab apple and they defoliated a second time and got a beautifull burst of flowers.
Peter

When in its second flowering would you return to the flower feeding regime? or does the tree have enough strength stored to handle it a second time?

The picture below is the result of a few weeks growing since I removed all the leaves. Flower buds are appearing so hopefully I can get some nice shots soon. I fear I will be overseas when it flowers and miss again
Question: I did notice the leaves have grown back larger than before. I wonder if the sudden cool changes could be the result of this? Or...

It is under a shade sail but a lot of light is still getting in. . I am guessing the reduced light could cause this? Mind you, this shade sail has been a life (tree) saver with all this crazy hot 40+ days we have been having. Now that it's cooler I was thinking of moving it out to full sun but again the shade sail is not very big and lets in a lot of light.


Thank you all for your wisdom and guidence.

Nice setup there Brendan. I think that sometimes when defoliation happens late in the season, it can have a negative response for our purposes ie..larger leaf size and bigger internodal length as well as wasted energy.
Peter

You have some very nice looking trees there Brendan and the way they are presented looks good also. Is this your home or business?

Jon

Hi Jon,

It's home. Bonsai is purely a hobby for me. I'm very new with only a year proper experience. Learning every day.

Can I share something too

I have only one "green"-leaf (as opposed the red leaf) for a number of years
now, it has been fruiting regularly and profusely in the past years, but all
fruits usually fell off during mid-January.

So this year, I carefully keep it in the shade, bring it inside during the day,
outside during the night etc.

It was in extremely good condition in the beginning of January/2009, so I cut
off some of the big leaves, and gave a it a lot of dynamic lifter. As the weather
was getting hotter, the remaining leaves got burnt off slowly, and it has been
putting out new crop of leaves... now (15/Feb/2009) it is full of leaves again,
but mostly the leaves are bigger than the previous one. Most of the fruits are
still there.

I think it is because of the the feed at the beginning of January/2009.

I observe that, I can be completely wrong, the red-leaf crabapple are more
resilient than the green-leaf ones?

Regards.