AusBonsai

I brought this little 'SmartyPants' in Oct 2008 from Bunnings for $5 instead of $15. 2 sticks in a 150mm pot, having dried out & lost most of its leaves, this was one sad plant. When I looked at the bark it was still plump & alive so it was mine Off home & threw it in a shallow drum of rainwater my dogs drink from (It was so dry the pot floated). I then went to prepare a hole for it to go into, I wanted a nice fat trunk with good taper & in a fairly large tree, ground growing is the only way to do that FAST! A patch approx 50cm dia and 45cm deep was dug and broken up, then some of the soil was removed & set aside. A mound was formed in the middle for the tree's roots to sit on.

The tree had been soaking for about an hour and was already looking much happier:D I then took it out of the pot and tore the root ball apart trying not to break too many large roots (a good shake once you have done the initial loosening works wonders) tease out whats left & shortened the whole lot by half. Removing any roots growing straight down from the trunk. The roots are then spread out on top of the mound prepared already. The roots were then covered with a layer of dirt & a bucket of water is poured gently round the edges of the hole until its full. Give the tree a slight wiggle to settle and wait for the water to soak in then backfill loosely leaving a slight rim around the outside edge to help trap water and a 3" layer of scrub mulch to top it off. This was then given another bucket of waterit was watered 2wks later then 8wks 6mths. It has had only rainwater since then ie 2yrs. I left it to grow until September 2009 then cut it back hard & selected my future branches, I want to grow the whole lot together instead of using sacrifice branches for thickening. In november 09 I removed the profuse backbuds along the trunk to focus its growing energies into my main branches. In August 2010 it was cut back to the main branches yet again. The first branch was originally one of the 2 original trunks so has more vigour than the other branches, as such it has required more regular & heavier pruning as the tree develops. It was reduced to a short stump in August 09 and then again in jan '10. By April it was needing another heavy prune to stop it swelling excessively in relation to the rest of the tree. It was hard pruned with the rest of the tree in August, again in November and again 1wk ago.

This has to be one of the fastest thickening plants I have ever ground grown... October 2008 20mm thick, January 2011 trunk 15cm nebari 22cm. Next spring it will be dug & replanted on more of an angle with the main branches cut back even further than in the past to start building the secondaries. In the ground this should only take a further year & she can then go into a pot.

Matt

That's incredible growth, Matt.

Difficult to get the full picture of the trunkline- but what's the possibility of cutting back all the primary branches in total and regrow them? As is they will only thicken up more and add to future problems of the branches being too thick in relation with the trunk?

Lennard

Hey Lennard,

Unfortunately I dont have a photo that shows the branch placement properly, maybe one day i work how to photograph my trees

Regarding the branches, i could cut them off completely & regrow, however this type of bougy is even worse at healing up big chops so would like to avoid too many on the main trunk. I have another that I have been ground growing for almost 15yrs & have found that the branches tend to slow right down in thickening once they get to a certain size(always much less than the trunk). The trunk continues to thicken markedly right thru to the apex, loosing taper very quickly if growth is not heavily controlled in the upper parts.

I will try to get some better pics when I dig it to work next spring.

Matt

Since we are talking Bougs.

Has anyone heard of a fertilliser called Bougain???

It is talked about on overseas sites and apprently makes bougs jump out of the ground!
I havent had any luck with finding this product here.

Cheers