Duranta from a Newbie

[bingregory]

Hello everybody,

Great forum you got here, so much enthusiasm. I'm a northern temperate zone transplant to the tropics, just starting to get into bonsai. I dug up a duranta repens "yellow flame" two weeks ago and did a basic trunk chop on it. I'll be starting to reduce the tuft of foliage after it's recovered from being potted up. I want to shorten and hollow out the trunk where it was chopped, put the apex a lot closer on the upper left and then maybe bring some branches down to the right ending below the trunk chop. Not sure what kind of style that would wind up being... Has anyone worked with duranta before? Not finding it in the archives - is it considered unattractive or unsuitable for bonsai? All suggestions or comments welcome, looking forward to learning a lot around here!

[Bougy Fan]

Hi and Welcome
I missed your post initailly - did you also search for Sheena's Gold which is a commonly used name over here ? The duranta and the murraya don't seem to be that popular - not really sure why not as they are prolific growers and readliy available. I have entered a small stump into the shohin comp. The base of your tree looks very good - I would let it recover and wait to see where it shoots from before making a decision on styling.

Tony

[bingregory]

Thanks for the search tip, I'll try that! Thus far, the most bonsai hits I've gotten have been for "pingo de ouro" which is what they call it in Brazil. It seems to be a popular bonsai material over there - turned up a lot of nice images for inspiration that way, but the language is a barrier. Meanwhile I'll try to be patient and see what the tree offers me after a few months.

[bingregory]

For your general amusement, I present an attempt at a virt. I wonder whether doodling on a napkin and scanning it wouldn't be an improvement but there it is. The main advantage here must be in keeping me from disturbing the tree while it grows out.. .

That's a stab at a shari where the stump used to be. It seems from looking online at what others have done that duranta wood can hold up to shari treatment. I thought I could use that to modify the apparent angle of the old trunk, which bends too far down in the original, and to give it (the imaginary old trunk) some taper.

[bingregory]

Duranta1st_apr2015_web.jpg

The tree as of last month. Ants and rot ate away a lot of the base, till I hit it with a few coats of polyurethane.

[Steven]

Nice to see you back here Bingregory.

Your Duranta has grown well in the last few years. Maybe you could cut it back hard to achieve something along the lines of the shape of the red line?

Duranta1st_apr2015_web.jpg

Regards,
Steven

[bingregory]

Thanks, Steve. I didn't have the guts to take it back that far - still worried about keeping it alive! - but I did prune it back shortly after the photo. Here it is today 3-4 weeks after that. Next time around I'll be more severe

DSC_0031.jpg

[Boics]

Love the exposed and hollowed trunk!

Keep it up!

[Jarad]

I like where you are taking this tree.

Love the exposed and hollowed trunk!

Keep it up!

I second this.

[dansai]

You could let it grow more before cutting to thicken the branches before cutting back hard. Then let it grow again and cut back. Thus creating taper and movement in your branches too. In a few years you'll have some good branch structure to compliment that great base you have.