Large Ginkgo restoration project

[Patmet]

This is a large (for my standards) Ginkgo I bought when an opportunity arose at the start of 2022.

The owner told me it had been grown in Perth since some time in the 80's, giving it an age of 40 something years old.

It has quite an impressive base but it had been left to grow very long and out of proportion. I didn't like the 3 equally spaced straight trunks either, so I've been cutting back each year to encourage some new lower growth. I've now also got it out of the very heavy, large ceramic pot and into a smaller plastic one. I can move it around a lot easier now and it's in a better draining mix for my cooler, wetter conditions down in Albany.

My current goals for this is to take it in a pretty traditional flame shape sort of direction - It just makes sense for this one. I want to get as much new branching as low as I can to develop multi trunks that are in proportion with the base and even perhaps one day down the track do some carving on the central trunk for some more interest.

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As purchased Jan 2022

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Repotted for first time with me July 2023

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Before prune June 2024

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After. Different angles

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Size

[shibui]

Good score! Ginkgo with any branching and/or trunk diameter take a VERY long time so are really uncommon.

While they are slow to develop, ginkgo are hard to kill and back bud easily (though not prolifically) when pruned hard. They can be trunk chopped hard and still give new buds from an old trunk (or sometimes from the base and roots).
Fingers crossed for lots of buds where you can make best use of them. Look forward to updates through spring and next summer.

[melbrackstone]

What a beaut Ginkgo! I look forward to seeing how you go with it too. I've never seen one that old here in Qld, but of course that doesn't mean much. I do find they grow easily from cuttings, but stay looking like sticks forever with the way I tend to neglect my cuttings.

[TimS]

Great find!

Virtually any Ginkgo material with size is worth a punt, doubly so if you don't have big scars and such to worry about, so definitely worth picking up IMO.

Flame style is actually quite simple and straightforward with these, just slow (like everything else Ginkgo). They will throw dormant buds off old wood including the trunk so don't be afraid to feed it up and get it super healthy, and basically use as much of the new shoots as you can to generate it.

I've found that if you cut an existing shoot off, ie your two side branches there, you get a multitude of new buds shooting from all around the cut site, so don't feel that you 100% have to keep those long term if you don't like them. Especially at the size of those branches the scarring from it will be minimal, but visible for quite a while still, but you might decide that new shoots you can train yourself are preferable to the existing ones and will hide the scar anyway very quickly.

All my years working with Ginkgo has taught me that yes they are slow to thicken the main trunk, but reasonably quick to develop the minimal ramification required for flame style. Not development on a level of a Chinese elm or maple or whatever, but certainly you can get some good development within a handful of years. Don't stress about maintaining a specific front with flame style in my experience is my other tip. Ginkgo are one of the deciduous that are better shown in Autumn colour than in winter silhouette (unless it's incredible branching) so you'll hide a lot of the sins such as lack of taper etc with the autumn leaves. If you can get reasonably equal shoots all around it then it will look right

Looking forward to following along!

[Topiarius]

Thanks for the post - I am working to the same with one of mine so will look forward to future updates on progress made

[Keels]

Do you have any luck air layering ginkgo Tim? I dug a really tall ginkgo three years ago. It's about 2.5 meters tall with a plan to try airlayering it this spring.

[TimS]

I have never bothered to try air layering Ginkgo to be able to tell you, but i hear it works it just takes a loooooong time to get roots.

I thought about it with Ginkgo Comes Home when i first dug it and it was bout 6ft tall, but there was no taper at all so i didn't see much point.

Be careful on the reduction cut, i had a decent chunk of die-back into the trunk when i reduced GCH down to 1.5-2ft tall, still only just starting to roll over nearly 7 years later i think it is.

Cut higher than you want the tree to be, and reduce again further later when you have more growth lower down to remove the inevitable die back

[Keels]

I have never bothered to try air layering Ginkgo to be able to tell you, but i hear it works it just takes a loooooong time to get roots.

I thought about it with Ginkgo Comes Home when i first dug it and it was bout 6ft tall, but there was no taper at all so i didn't see much point.

Be careful on the reduction cut, i had a decent chunk of die-back into the trunk when i reduced GCH down to 1.5-2ft tall, still only just starting to roll over nearly 7 years later i think it is.

Cut higher than you want the tree to be, and reduce again further later when you have more growth lower down to remove the inevitable die back

Thanks Tim. I literally have no taper either were I plan to airlayer. Might not be worth the trouble, I'll have to think on it.

Good point about die back. I will have to take that into consideration. I'll spin up my own post on my tree, can't let you have all the ginkgo fun.

[melbrackstone]

Ryan says with pines, if you're going to air layer, you must have at least one branch below the cut to help feed the roots so that the sugars and starches can flow up to the rest of the tree. I suspect that might be a good idea with ginkgo also?