AusBonsai

I have numerous of thes growing in my garden, all self sown in my pots a few years ago. i am wondering what they are and how i would go about digging one out to play with? it has really nice smll foliage & pretty flowers but best of all it seemns to respond really well to being cut back & hard! Thanks in advance
Matt

Looks like a leptospermum (Ti Tree) but which type I am not sure.

I have worked with L lanigerum and L laevigatum and they are both very good; budding back nicely, compacting and repotting nicely. In pots they like water.

grant

Chamaelaucium spp. It should have a distinct odour when crushed.

Joel

Joel wrote:Chamaelaucium spp. It should have a distinct odour when crushed.

Joel

It does have a distinct odor to the leaves when crushed, however I am more inclined to think its a Leptospermum, mainly because of its tolerance for growing in water. This is 2 of them about 9mths ago in my garden showing the weeping habit of the stems. Now i should tell the rest of the story, I have 5, all came up in one of my bonsai pots, I split them out into individual pots for another year then decided to put them in the garden. 3 are part of the frame of permanent plants in my front garden, one was let go until a few months ago then cut back to see if they reshoot. The final one had been growing in the wettest part of the garden, often sitting with up to 10cm of water above the nebari for days at a time...(hopefully wiht a constantly moist spot the rootball will stay small) the main reason I chose this as my guinea pig & gave it the odd bit of direction & pruning in the early stages. When the first one I chopped up started to shoot i went to town on this one to prepare it for digging. Once new buds had started to show I then dug trying to keep a fairly large rootball intact(easy when clay is wet). It was soaked in a bucket for 3days (unintentionally) before I hosed out as much of the clay as possible & potted up in my standard mix. Because this one had often grown in water & also been the best grower of all of them i decided to keep it in a water tray with the drainage holes just covered. It is on a bench at the back of the smaller shade area and gets about 2hrs of early morning sun then another 2hrs during mid afternoon. Alot of the new buds that it did have died back but it has started pumping away new shoots all over, especially on the trunk.

Not sure where it will end up but its a start, given the way these things grow & take to pruning etc I dont think it will be many years to a decent native shohin.

Matt

I tend to agree with Noel the flowers could be Lepto but the foliage does not fit.
It could be either Chamelaucium uncinatum ( Geraldton wax) or C, ciliatum ( Albany wax ) both of these fit with the flower and foliage. There are many others it also could be.
The foliage is what points me against it being a Lepto, the ones with the flower do not have the foliage.

Cheers Pup

Pup wrote:I tend to agree with Noel the flowers could be Lepto but the foliage does not fit.
It could be either Chamelaucium uncinatum ( Geraldton wax) or C, ciliatum ( Albany wax ) both of these fit with the flower and foliage. There are many others it also could be.
The foliage is what points me against it being a Lepto, the ones with the flower do not have the foliage.

Cheers Pup

I agree with you pup about the foliage pointing away from Lepto but i didnt think Chamelaucium would tolerate the constant wet soils that this plant has over the last 18mths.

I am not fussed what it is, as with the rest, what it is is secondary to how it grows for me. I was hoping to have an ID when i introduced the baby.

Matt

Perhaps a species of Baeckea/Babingtonia/Sonantha?

WOOHOO... we have a winner.... I think

Baeckea linifolia is the best fit all round... until I got to the final paragraph on the ANBG website
"Pests and diseases have not been seen, except for some die-back, possibly due to root-rot fungus in water-logged conditions caused by continuous rains. This indicates that, though moisture is needed, drainage must be good. "

HHHMMMMM...... heavy clay soils & often underwater for up to a week at a time.

I must admit Matt it does pose somewhat of a quandary, when it comes to the conditions, most of what I have been looking at, that fit the flowers and foliage have to be free draining.

I even thought, Thryptomene, but again free draining soil is needed.

The flower is very much like a lot of species, but the leaf, or in this case needle and water loving attributes is definitely a puzzle.

Will keep trying though, and yes it will make a very good Shohin.

Cheers Pup

Pup wrote:I must admit Matt it does pose somewhat of a quandary, when it comes to the conditions, most of what I have been looking at, that fit the flowers and foliage have to be free draining.

I even thought, Thryptomene, but again free draining soil is needed.

The flower is very much like a lot of species, but the leaf, or in this case needle and water loving attributes is definitely a puzzle.

Will keep trying though, and yes it will make a very good Shohin.

Cheers Pup

You see now why i turned to the wise folks here it has kept me puzzled for over 4yrs now & I still dont even know where the seed blew in from... I moved around ALOT for a while there so who knows....

I enjoy it no matter what its identity, infact its rather irrelevant to me in many ways... Its only so when someone asks 'what is that?' I can answer, instead of my usual 'I dont know'

Reminds me.. I should get some more photos of another mystery tree on my bench, it was tossed around the forum a few months ago, now its in leaf lets hope we get winner.

Matt