Dipping my toe into natives

[TimS]

Let me preface this with ' i have no idea what i'm doing'.

When i got into bonsai, it was via the seasonal beauty of the deciduous trees of Kyoto and Arashiyama in full autumnal glory i had visited on a holiday. I never really had much time for natives, even though my father is as mental for them as i am for maples. I used the excuse of having heard second hand of them being difficult and temperamental to bonsai culture to avoid them.

In the back of my mind though i have thought about the possibilities they may offer; potential for recreations of native heathland or Euc/ Angophora forests. While working i have taken to listening to podcasts, and specifically Bonsai Mirai podcasts. During the week i listened to the recap of his visit to the AABC convention and what he experienced with the natives there. It came away from that somewhat ashamed of myself for maligning natives on purely anecdotal stories, and decided to remedy that.

I dropped by the local nurseries and came away with a couple of young plants to try. Leptospermum petersonii for $6, and a clumped cultivar Callistemon I've never heard of called kenmorrisonii Betka Beauty for $9.95. I wasn't about to invest heavily despite my piqued interest. Upon hearing about this new direction, my father was more excited about bonsai than i have seen him since i started, and laid his hands on 21 tube stock Allocasuarina paradoxa for me to play around with and see how they fare in bonsai culture.

I have no idea how successful any of these will be, i'm stepping out of my comfort zone of knowledge and experience here and just going by horticultural principles, but i feel it is time for me to have my own source of experiences rather than just repeat what others have said without my own basis to work from.

I have potted both already into wider but shallower pots, taken about 20% off the roots and uncovered quite a nice flare to the trunk on the lepto. The She-oaks are tiny young things, so i'll just tease the roots a bit on the weekend and get them into either a seed tray or one of my deeper bonsai pots for the moment

Anyway, here's to learning by personal experience not just by second hand anecdotes. Having said that, i'll gladly listen to advice!

Lepto

lepto1.jpg

lepto2.jpg

Callistemon

cali1.jpg

cali2.jpg

She-oaks

acpara1.jpg

acpara2.jpg

[MJL]

Good that you recently made bench space to explore a new branch of your addiction. I reckon you might just find these natives to your liking... always changing, year round maintenance, quick to get interesting bark... and sometimes quick to ("shari the bed")...sorry still got another thread in my head.

To coin a modern 'Agile' management term - I reckon there's a bit of 'fail fast' in natives ... but they reward you quickly too.

[Ryceman3]

Ooohhh... contraversial!
I don’t really have much time at the moment, but the first thing that popped into my head was...
They’re thirstier than you would think!
Good luck, I love a good native!

[kcpoole]

Well done Tim and enjoy the journey.
Everyone should have a few natives on the benches as they have so many good attributes for Bonsai its not funny.
Yep some are temperamental, but many are easy as to grow and look after

Ken

[Ryceman3]

Hi Tim,
Got a bit more time now so let me elaborate on my earlier post ...
Firstly, my "controversial" comment was tongue-in-cheek really given some posts you've put up in the past, not necassarily condemning those who grow native bonsai to a cursed life, but stating that they just weren't your cup of tea ... so it's a bit of a change for you!

Secondly, "they're thirstier than you think" is a personal observation by which I mean the natives I grow seem to be less tolerant of dry conditions than say pines, chinese elms or trident maples I have in comparable conditions. I put this down to the following logic. A lot of natives are conditioned to live in harsh, dry conditions and their mechanism to deal with that is to throw roots long and deep to access water far below the soil surface. Therefore moving them into pot culture, and cultivating fine feeder roots immediately around the base of the tree is a little counter intuitive to the way they have evolved in nature ... so you need to cut them a little slack and look for ways to keep the water up to them on hot (and particularly windy) days. It's not a deal breaker - just something I think is worth flagging.

Finally (for now), the really great thing about a lot of natives is their propensity to grow like stink! As you can see from a lot of the recent posts in the "natural" comp, trunks are thickening, foliage is extending and development is accelerating on a multitude of native species in lots of different growing conditions. It is a wonderful thing to watch. My personal experience has Lepto Petersonii as one of my favourites, as much for the lemon smell that eminates when you work on it as it's quick development and propensity to back bud, lovely bark developing from a young age etc... I also have a couple of different kinds of Casuarina and you'll find that they will thicken up nicely in a short amount of time. If you are so inclined, a bit of wired in trunk movement wouldn't go astray sooner rather than later. By this time next year they will be completely different trees!

Enjoy your natives Tim, look forward to the development posts!

[terryb]

Hey Tim,

Given your predilection for propagation, and the speedy growth of some species, finding something you like and growing from seed is an option to get material to learn with.