Hard Pruning a Schefflera

When someone at a bonsai workshop advises me to chop trees back to leafless stumps, I'm often reluctant to do it. Although I've had some success with trunk chops, most of the time I'd rather cut trees back to the lowest growth, wait for back budding, then cut back further. Progress is a little slower that way, but I prefer to err on the side of caution.

With some species that approach doesn't work though. When I prune Scheffleras they tend to grow back from the point at which they were cut, not lower down where I want new branches.

So when I decided that this little Schefflera needed pruning, drastic measures were called for.

November 2019 -  before pruning

Some of the newer members of my club were horrified when I told them my plans, but I knew what had to be done. A few quick cuts later I was left with this.

November 2019 - after pruning

Scheffleras are slow growers and now, four weeks later, there are only a few tiny buds starting to put in an appearance on the branches. I know that my little tree is doing okay, but looking at it still makes me nervous.

At the time it was chopped I discussed my plans for its after-care with another member of my club. I said I intended to return it to its home in my greenhouse. He felt it should go outside.

At the time his idea seemed a viable option as the weather was extremely dry, so I felt a bit foolish when I said I wanted to protect it from the possibility of excess rain. But I feel vindicated now because it's been raining almost continuously for nearly five days. Slow persistent rain which is showing no sign of abating. Grey skies have become the norm and I've almost forgotten what the sun looks like! That's not normal weather where I live, but it happens every now and then.

I've seen what damage that kind of weather can do to a tree in this state.

Years ago I defoliated a similar Schefflera. That was back in the days when I still tried to grow some of my trees indoors. Keeping it inside shouldn't have been a problem. Scheffleras are very tolerant.  I kept my big one in a very dark room for years before I realised the error of my ways and moved it outside. My problem was that I lost patience. When it was progressing too slowly on a sunny windowsill, I decided to move it outside.

As luck would have it, a few days later we were hit by the kind of weather we're experiencing now. Too much water for a tree without leaves! In a few days it was dead.

Had I left this one exposed to the elements, it would probably have died too.

It's wet, wet, wet

The drought is finally over in my part of the country. Instead we've had so much rain that it's causing problems of its own - severe flooding in parts has even lead to loss of life.

We've had rain every day for the past week. Some days the rain has fallen for the entire day and the ground is so saturated that it can no longer absorb all the water that keeps on falling. These two holes in our garden have been full of water for a large part of the week.

At one time I had trees fattening up in those holes and I'm really grateful they're not there right now because all that water would probably have lead to root rot. Thankfully my trees are sitting on a cement floor with a slight slope which allows the excess rain water to drain away but I still worry about a few which seem to have developed minor drainage problems.

The wet weather has prevented me from doing much of the work I wanted to get done this week. This little Ficus Burtt-Davyi which put in an appearance in my last post was pruned several days ago. Since then he's been waiting around for me to repot him at a more appropriate angle so that I could see what wiring was required.

Finally today I got tired of waiting, so I did the job in the kitchen.

I wired the two thickest branches, but the others can wait until they fatten up a bit. I'll decide at a later stage which, if either, of the two lowest branches to keep. For now I'm hoping they'll help create a bit more taper.

I've got a few more trees in the kitchen waiting for minor pruning but I really need to spend some time outside so that I can see which trees are in most urgent need of attention.

I'm grateful for the rain but enough is enough already. It's time it headed off to another part of the country where the drought is still a serious problem. Unfortunately the weather forecast suggests that's not going to happen just yet.

Hail and Bonsai

Nine years ago, just weeks after I joined my bonsai club, we were hit by the worst hail I've ever had the misfortune to experience. Stones the size of golf balls (or possibly larger) pelted our house, breaking 13 windows. Needless to say my small "bonsai" collection suffered significant damage too.

Among the trees that were damaged that night was my "pride and joy", a little Serissa (really just a stick in a pot) which I had wired only days earlier and which I misguidedly believed was well on its way to making a beautiful bonsai. It lost an important branch that night and with it my hopes for its immediate future were dashed. Sadly that tree died about a year later in the great vinegar disaster.

Another victim of the hail was a fairly substantial Crassula which I'd grown from a cutting a few years earlier. It was so badly damaged that I was forced to cut it back to a stump, while a little Portulacaria which I had hoped to turn into a cascade had to be totally restyled.

I still have both those trees but due to the brittle nature of succulents I've never put much effort into styling either of them. Hopefully I will some day.

Remarkably no trees died that night, proving how resilient a healthy plant can be.

Thankfully the storm that hit us two weeks ago was minor by comparison. A few of my trees lost small branches, but for the most part the damage was restricted to shredded foliage.

Hail damage

I'm not aware of any structural damage to this little ficus, but I'm sure glad it wasn't in this sorry state for its appearance at our club show last month.

Ficus Natalensis two weeks after the hail

After the Storm

Late afternoon thunderstorms are a normal part of summer where I live, though sadly they've been a rarity over the last couple of summers. I don't enjoy the storms, but when you're living through a drought, grey skies are a welcome sight and rain of any nature is a blessing.

We had a massive storm this afternoon with heavy rain, booming thunder and a lawn blanketed in hail. It was after 7:00 pm by the time calm was restored, allowing me to go outside to water the trees in my greenhouse, and I wasn't too happy with the sight that greeted me - shredded leaves scattered all over the paving and a few trees standing in pots full of hailstones, among them this tiny Ficus burtt-davyi:

 As it was already dark outside I wasn't able to inspect my trees properly so I'm not sure whether there was any more serious damage.

To put it all in perspective, however, there have been reports of over 100 cars stuck on a flooded highway about five kilometres from where I live as well as two storm-related deaths nearby.

And through it all I can't help wondering whether any rain fell in the areas where it's needed most.

Spring Came Early

Well actually that title is wishful thinking, but some of my trees certain seem to think that it's true.

A case in point is the mulberry tree I rescued from my pavement a few months ago. Under normal circumstances I would have left it outdoors unprotected through the winter. However the root system is so new that I wasn't prepared to risk killing it, so, since nighttime temperatures started dropping below 5°C (41°F) I've been putting it out during the day and moving it into my greenhouse at night.

On 1 July I noticed the first signs that the buds were starting to swell, and now, less than three weeks later, it's already got quite a lot of young foliage. This photo of a young leaf was taken two days ago.

I wasn't surprised to see this happening to a tree in a sheltered environment, but yesterday I had a glance at what remains of the parent tree and discovered that the buds on that one are starting to swell too. It's growing right next to a west facing wall, but that's all the protection it gets from our "cold" winter nights.

Cold, in my climate, is still relatively mild of course. The lowest we've been so far this winter is 2°C (35°F), though it's likely that things will get worse before they get better. In fact, despite the fact that today has been pretty warm, the forecast for the next week is worse than anything we've had the whole winter. We're also expecting some unseasonal rain.

The good news for me is that spring really isn't that far off. By this time next month I expect to see new foliage on a lot of my deciduous trees.