Ending Summer on a Positive Note

When I took my Schotia Brachypetala to my bonsai club for help with its initial trunk chop back in 2012 one of the senior members told me it was a slow grower and that I should plant it in the ground. As I was happy with the thickness of the trunk, I chose not to follow his advice. Based on how it has developed since then, I have no regrets.

I don't think it's so much a case of this tree growing slowly as that it needs a push every now and then to get it going. It certainly responds well every time I prune it. So perhaps it was a mistake to leave it to do its own thing for most of this summer.

At the beginning of March I decided it was time to rewire it as the old wires were starting to bite.

March 2017 - before pruning

While I was at it, I decided to give it a quick haircut. Mostly that just consisted of reducing the groups of compound leaves to pairs, but I think I pruned one branch at the time. Despite the fact that I kept the work to a minimum it ended up looking quite naked.

March 2017 - after pruning

Not for long though. Once more the haircut stimulated a lot of new growth, and a mere 17 days later I was happy to see lots of new buds developing in the large gap between the top branch and the apex.

New buds - March 2017

Two weeks later everything has filled in nicely apart from the lowest branch on the left which has suffered a little die-back.

April 2017

I suspect that branch may not be getting enough light, so perhaps I need to turn that side towards the sun.

With winter approaching I won't be working on this tree any more for a while. When spring comes around however, it will be time for a repot. The only surface root it has at the moment is badly positioned and will probably have to go, so I really hope I can find some better roots hidden below the soil.

Three Weeks After the Show

I can't believe it's already three weeks since our club show. Time is really flying and as we move from spring into summer some of my trees are growing like crazy. I decided it was time to see what progress my show trees had made in that short time.

I was amazed to see the change in my Stinkwood tree. This is what it looked like at the show:

Stinkwood as it appeared at the show

Since then the branch structure had largely disappeared behind a mass of big new leaves. (Sorry about the bad camera angle hiding the base.)

Stinkwood with three weeks of growth since show

I might have left it like that for a little longer, but this tree has a crazy idea of seasons, waking up in late winter and going dormant long before my other trees. As I'm hoping to get some better ramification going I need to maximise its growing season so I did something approaching a Walter Pall hedge prune - nothing too dramatic, just reducing the volume of foliage to allow light to get to the inner branches which need it most. I'll do more selective pruning while it's dormant, and by then I hope to have more options to choose from.

I was much gentler on my other show trees.

Schotia - 30 October 2016

My Schotia had hardly put out any new growth since the show. The only useful bud of any substance was this one, though I spotted a couple of other buds which are just starting to swell.

Aside from that it had pushed out this unwanted bud on the trunk:

Removing that was the only work possible on this tree. As it grows slowly, I'm not sure how much more I'll be able to do this summer. Ramification may take a while on this one.

My olive tree is starting to look a bit messy, with lots of little buds pushing out all over the trunk:

Some of those buds will need to go before I lose track of which branches I really want, but I'll leave working on this tree for another day. There's been a change of plan for its future design since I originally discussed it back in April, so it really needs a post of its own.

As for my little ficus, it's starting to look a little untidy too, but I decided to hold back on the next trim for a little longer. I'll probably trim the top growth soon, but I'll let the lower branches grow for a while so that they can thicken up a bit more.

With top branches wired

Meanwhile I noticed that the wire on the upper branches was starting to bite, so I removed that.

After removing the wire

The branches held their position reasonably well so I didn't bother to rewire them for now. There's plenty of time to do that later if required.

Trees in training for less than five years

It's showtime at my bonsai club this weekend.

In bonsai terms that should be one of the highlights of my year, but unforeseen circumstances have prevented me from dedicating much time to my trees over the past month and this week I found myself totally unprepared for the show. When I looked at my small collection of trees which are actually in bonsai pots, only one looked vaguely show-worthy but not really the way I'd have wanted it to look for putting on show.

Fortunately the club has introduced a section for trees which have been in training for less than five years, and those can be displayed in training pots. So I looked around to see which trees I could display in that section and cut my options down to four on which I did some preparation today.

These are my options:

1. Schotia Brachypetala

Schotia - before tidying up for show

This tree has been growing quite vigorously since its early spring pruning. Initially I planned to do no more than rewire it, but in the end I went a little further and ended up with my tree looking like this:

Schotia - ready for show

Though it appears that I did some drastic work, only one branch was pruned. The rest was merely reducing the volume of the large compound leaves so that the branch structure became a bit more visible. Though I'm not convinced the tree is looking its best right now, removing that foliage actually helped me to notice a few branches that had been wired in the wrong direction. That should benefit the tree in the long term.

2. Celtis Africana

Celtis Africana

This is one of my bigger trees and has quite a nice trunk, with a few secrets which I'll keep for a future post. Unfortunately I haven't put much time or effort into ramification yet, so the top isn't looking that good.

3. Olea europaea subsp africana (Olive)

Olive

This tree has had a bit more carving done since I last wrote about it in April. Since then it had put out lots of new growth all over the trunk, but I tidied that up for show purposes. I'm not totally happy with the style though and plan to let the branches grow out further for the rest of the summer.

4. Ficus Natalensis

Ficus Natalensis

The smallest of the four but one of my favourite trees. This one was propagated from a root cutting and has been grown with very little input from the members of my club, so this more than any of the others feels like 'my' tree. Although the scars may bother some people, I like them and feel they almost make the trunk look like a little person.

Unless I have a last minute change of heart I'll be taking all four trees along to the show set-up on Friday. Hopefully all will be regarded as good enough.

Pruning stimulates new growth

Sometimes it's not easy to decide when to prune a tree and when to leave it to grow undisturbed.

I've been accused of over-pruning my trees and it's often true. However in the case of the Schotia I wrote about recently, I feel vindicated by my tree's positive response to a haircut that some regarded as too harsh.

When I pruned the tree in August, it was looking rather ugly with the faded remnants of last summer's foliage.

Schotia after pruning - 23 August 2016

Today, barely a month later it has lost most of that ugly foliage and is covered with new growth.

Schotia - 24 September 2016

I have no doubt that some will say that it would have grown even more had I not pruned it, and had the tree been a different species that may well have been the case. But not with this one. Here's a smaller tree of the same species, which stands right beside the larger one and has been exposed to the same conditions over the last month. The only difference - the little one wasn't pruned in August.

Smaller Schotia - 24 September 2016

So far it has shown no signs of new growth this season.

Under the circumstances I felt obliged to give it a haircut to bring it out of hibernation.

Schotia Brachypetala one year later

I first discussed this Schotia and its development from a five foot nursery tree in a post I wrote late last year, shortly after it had been subjected to a very dramatic pruning.

September 2015

By the time I wrote that post in November 2015, it was already showing good signs of recovery and I left it to grow unchecked for the rest of the summer.

Despite being a relatively slow-growing tree, it put out strong growth and a couple of weeks ago, with spring approaching, I decided it was time to get rid of the excess growth and try to work on better ramification.

August 2016 - before pruning

After pruning the structure of the tree is a bit more apparent.

August 2016 - after pruning

I'm still not totally happy with the direction that the top branches are growing as the apex seems to be sticking too far forward. (This problem can be clearly seen in the side view photo I included in my previous post.)

I won't decide what to do about it right now though, but will wait to see what new growth this year's pruning stimulates. Maybe once those branches ramify a bit more, the top won't look so bad.

Apologies for the ugly end of winter foliage. Now that spring has arrived I'm hoping that some fresh green leaves will soon appear.

Creating bonsai from nursery stock

This little tree is a Schotia Brachypetala, also known in South Africa as a Weeping Boer-bean or Huilboerboon.

It is one of the two varieties of Schotia which I've seen used as bonsai. Both have compound leaves, but the leaves of the other variety are naturally much smaller. At the time I bought my tree, I was unaware of the existence of the small-leaved variety and didn't hesitate to buy the one with larger leaves.

That's not to say I regret my purchase. I've seen very few trees of the other variety for sale, and those I've seen have all had very thin trunks. They were also priced a lot higher than what I paid for mine.

When I bought this little guy in 2012, it was about five foot tall in its nursery bag and cost me less than $10. I could barely lift it and I'm not sure I'd have been strong enough to make the first steps on its journey to bonsai without the assistance of one of the men from my bonsai club.

Nursery tree in its bag

So in early spring of 2012 I dragged it to a workshop where I was assisted in transferring it to a training pot. My helper also cut the tree back  to a stump of approximately 20cm in height, leaving it totally devoid of branches or foliage.

August 2012, after trunk chop - height approximately 20cm

I'm a nervous person by nature, so I tend to worry about my trees after such drastic work has been done. But all I could do was wait and hope that all would be well.

In this case I didn't have to wait long. Within weeks there were new buds everywhere.

October 2012 - first growth after chop

And a few weeks later it was growing really well, giving me more branches than I needed.

November 2012 - lots of options

As I didn't want my tree to develop unnecessary scars, I decided to select my branches early so I picked a left branch, a right branch and a back branch as well as a new leader, and removed everything else. Looking back at these photos now, I think I could have kept a few more.

By July 2013 I had some quite strong growth and I had wired the branches into their desired positions. (The reason that the lowest branch had its end wired upwards was to encourage it to grow thicker than those above it.)

July 2013 - branches selected and wired

Over the next two years I didn't do much other than watering and feeding the tree, allowing the branches time to thicken. The original flat cut was tidied up, and I removed the ugly root on the right hand side, and that was about it.

Then this September I finally decided to take the next step. All the branches and the leader were cut back and I once more had a naked tree.

September 2015 - all branches cut back

Not for long though. My latest photos, taken today, show the tree after another two minor trims.

November 2015 - front view

I now find myself in a quandary over what to do with the top. It looks okay in the front view photo, but when viewed from the side I feel that the leader is coming too far forward.

November 2015 - side view

I'm undecided whether to leave it that way or whether to remove the part above the branch that is currently wired to the back and pull that one upwards to form a new leader. I'll need to make my decision while that branch is still thin and flexible.