AusBonsai

Banksia spinulosa "honeyeater delight"
Height: 30 cm
Cost: $12.95
From a local nursery
The plan - to get a bit more experience in working with Australian natives, and to have a bit of fun.

bargain, good-luck with it.. keen to see update photos

Hi Watto
Im having a crack at one of these also but mine is a "cherry candle".
Will be interesting to see how they turn out. I know nothing about this species so it will be a good experience.
Good luck
Damian

Thanks for your comments. I am on a learning curve with this one, but looking forward to the challenge. Keen to keep an eye on yours too.

Just a bit of a trim to clear away the bits I know I won't need, and then let it rest for the winter. Where I live its a bit cold to play with these too much during the winter months.

A quick photo up-date. A bit more trimming and now waiting for some warmer weather.

After some looking around my pot collection I decided on an old Australian made pot by BE Findley which I think is appropriate for an Autralian native tree. The pot has character and I have had it for more than 20 yrs and it has been used a few times.
Its an interesting pot in that it appears to look different colours at different times. Goes from grey to a brown/grey I think. Anyway, here is the pot.

Finally potted, and yes it is the same pot.

This has been wired, and has had the wire taken off, and a bit more put on. I have grown a sacrifice branch out the back to try and improve the trunk width, and have trimmed it a couple of times. It does appear to grow quite vigorously during the warmer weather, but here there might not be enough warm weather now to see any exceptional growth. A bit more wire soon and a trim before the final photo shoot.

The June update. This tree is continuing to fill out and extend. I have grown a sacrifice branch out the back to try and improve the trunk thickness, standard bonsai practice on native material but it makes sense to me. The sacrifice branch has grown about 20cm in a bit over six months so that was impressive.
Plenty of work still to be done though.

I do love this species a lot. Nice looking start. I haven't grown these myself, but is there a concern about having a sacrifice branch and 2 other branches growing from the same point a possible start of producing a bulge? I know its a problem on Integrifolia, but not sure about spinulosa.

bonsaibuddyman wrote:I do love this species a lot. Nice looking start. I haven't grown these myself, but is there a concern about having a sacrifice branch and 2 other branches growing from the same point a possible start of producing a bulge? I know its a problem on Integrifolia, but not sure about spinulosa.

I was just about to ask the same question

Ken

The sacrifice branch is slightly lower but yes there is some thickening but you never never know if you don't give it a go. Idealially it would have been better if the sacrifice branch was lower, but ......

Wow Watto, I never thought I would see one of these. Well done

My final photos for this one.
I have learnt a lot about banksai during this process and that is a good thing. In the coming years I will try and reduce the number of branches that emerge from each junction back to two. Naturally they have numerous branches from each cut however that is not ideal for bonsai. In this instance I did leave a few on to bulk up the foliage pad but in November it will start the next part of its journey. A few years down the track I would like to show this, together with other natives in a seven point shohin display.
The photo is an Aussie native in a pot by an Australian potter on a stand made from some old Aussie hardwood with some serated tussock as the accent - just for fun.