AusBonsai

jamie111 wrote:at the price they are asking joel, i completly agree, if anyone wants one then i wouldnt be paying for them but i do think they arent exactly worth it to try as bonsai.

JMO


jamie

Agreed Jamie.

If i were given one, i would probably put it in a large pot to grow until it is a few metres tall (to be polite) and then sell it on eBay or give it to somebody i know with a large property. I am happy for others to experiment, but personally i would rather experiment on something else. Hope Grant proves us wrong!

Joel

well thats just it, i do hope to be proven wrong, like i have said i have sen a couple of wollemi pine "bonsai" just didnt really think much of them, that was my personal opinion.

i do agree though they would make a nice large patio pot plant or garden tree


jamie

jamie111 wrote:well thats just it, i do hope to be proven wrong, like i have said i have sen a couple of wollemi pine "bonsai" just didnt really think much of them, that was my personal opinion.

i do agree though they would make a nice large patio pot plant or garden tree


jamie

Hey you describing mine Jamie
it is in a large pot on the patio and is about 3 foot tall now

Ken

woah... freaky

im not against them as trees, far from it actually i like them alot, i just think trying to make them bonsai will be awkward and hard... a lot of hassle for a not an overly pleasing result..

JMO though


jamie

I'm with you Jamie. Plenty of better species to be wasting time on but who knows what someone with vision and determination can produce

shibui wrote:I'm with you Jamie. Plenty of better species to be wasting time on but who knows what someone with vision and determination can produce

I prefer the term "Stubborn Pigheadedness"

yea that is true, if you have the time and patience for them, its just my opinion that it isnt worth it. but on the other hand experimentation is always a good thing, if someone is willing to try and give it a go (which i know a few have, as i have seen a couple) and come up with something reasonable then all the best to them

and if someone does have a crack then make sure they take pics and progressives to prove my thoughts wrong, i would love to be proved wrong in this case


jamie

As I understand it, secondary branches are also a rare phenomenon. I believe the side branches sometimes turn erect and form a new trunk with it's own side branches. That could be difficult if you wanted a unique style? The branch drop appears to be associated with either age, or as a function of reproduction when it turns into a cone. Does this make branch drop inevitable? Who knows. You'd need to have it for a fair few years to determine if this would be a problem.

In spite of that, I'd encourage it as a bonsai just because I love the impossible. Most bonsai enthusiasts would say you can't bonsai an Aussie native, but people here have proven that myth so wrong. If I knew more about bonsai I'd give the Wollemi a go, but I think I need a few years of experience up my sleeve first. Perhaps under a bonsai situation, some of the physiology may be altered. I mean, if it's kept small perhaps the branches won't mature to a point that they will drop? I guess that's something only experimentation will only tell.

For $200-$250, though? I'd take Joel's advice and wait for a cheaper one.

We had one visitor to the collection saying that Quote" Because you cant Bonsai an Araucaria you will never be able to Bonsai a Wollemi!"

He was standing next to a Hoop Pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) as he said this and didn't realise or didn't even bat an eyelid. Why let fact get in the way of a strongly held opinion.

The Wollemi may never be a great bonsai, if at all, but it is interesting material.

I too have one about 4 feet high in a pot in my back yard.

Grant Bowie

just to add to your hoop pine there grant i recently chopped mine back again getting it ready for the ausbonsai native comp!

here it is

jamie

Oops, I forgot to add the extra info.

The Araucaria was on loan to the NBPCA for 1 year and is now back at home. The owner has since taken to it with a chain saw(almost literally) and cut off most of the foliage and a lot of roots and last I heard it was powering away again.

The Wollemi is strictly neither Araucaria nor Agathis but shares some features, but interestingly was not at first instantly identified as something similar to those. Without seeing the trees someone first thought it was a fern of some sort.

Grant

that is one thing i have notice with aracuaria is they just seem to love being pruned, they dont sulk and they just boom shortly after the pruning!

jamie

If you cut back Wollemi into 1 or 2 year old trunk wood when it is hot(earlier the better so November into December in the ACT) you get a very quick setting of buds and new growth.

Pinch the tips of the "leaves" and you also get new buds and much slower and smaller growth. Not sure yet about cutting into 2nd or 3rd year wood of the "leaves"/"branches"yet.

Time will tell.

Grant

Wollemis are certainly not for the faint hearted at this stage - either because of the high prices, or because of the challenges in trying to grow them as 'bonsai'.

The 'leaves' aren't actually 'compound'. They are entire and closely spaced along the sides of the branches. This is important insofar as there is a potential for new 'buds' in the 'axil' of a leaf (that is in the angle between where the leaf attaches and the branch), whereas there is usually no such potential bud within the structure of a compound leaf. The trees are known to bud back on trunks at almost any level, so giving a tree the chop 'should' produce new buds from below the chop (but it's your money not mine!).

At the NBPCA they have found, so far, that if you prune the 'branch' you may get new growth from those 'axillary buds', but generally, only very near the cut end. That's also important for you your plan to structure your 'ramifying branchlets'. They are also trying to pull the tips out of new branches when those new branches are only say 2-5 cm long. The results of this experiment are not yet known. The goal is to see what kind of ramification is possible.

Take a look at the photos of those mature wollemis in their native habitat. Especially look at the branches. They mostly don't branch - though there are some that do, once, or maybe twice, it hardly constitutes what bonsaiists call ramification. The branches aren't all that long for the height of the tree, either. The shape of the crown is a tall, thin cylinder. The branches occur only in the upper parts of the trunk, so yes, they 'drop' their lower branches quite easily. That isn't uncommon for many sun loving species, but the lack of secondary, or tertiary branchlets is not very common amongst such tall woody plants (palms, cycads and the like excepted).

So, styling your wollemi bonsai has some real horticultural challenges, as well as pushing the boundaries of what you will accept as OK aesthetics. At this stage of our knowledge, if you are wedded to classical Japanese styles of scalene triangles, and left/right/back branching, then you might want to steer clear of wollemis until someone discovers some new horticultural techniques. All of the trees I've seen as photographs are straight trunked - the ship-mast variety. If you are adventuresome, and don't mind the unusual, you might rise to the challenge of wollemi bonsai, but you probably won't win large numbers of friends, just a few good ones!!!

Cheers and good luck. Love to hear of others experiences with wollemis as bonsai. I'm sure we have much more to learn.
Kunzea

I am amazed at just how quickly some people are to write off the wollemi as no good for bonsai. It wasn't that long ago that eucalypts, banksia and acacias all were considered useless as bonsai material In fact many still erroneously still believe that Australian natives do not make good bonsai Wasn't this the main reason for Steven starting this site - to promote the use of Australian native plants in bonsai
Having said this I have not tried one simply because the price is exhorbitant. Flower Power still charge over $60 for a 10" pot with a plant no bigger than 40cm. From reading the label on the plant, they shoot back readily which is one of the prime considerations for potential bonsai. An earlier comment said that they can be easily root pruned and that the leaves also reduce in size. Seems to me that we just need a few enterprising indivuals to 'have a go' and we may all be very surprised at the result.