Council Clean Up?!

[legoman_iac]

So a friend who is into gardening but not bonsai (I know, wild right) found this bottlebrush(?) in a pot by the side of the road during the last council clean up and took it for ... "the pot". I saw they had just removed it from the pot and it was sitting there, so natural next question was "What are you doing with it? Can I have it if you're throwing it out?" ... answer was YES!!! (saved them binning it!)

Spent about 30min digging and trimming roots, thinking it'd then fit into a giant 40 cm pot I have, but no, too big. So brought it home and will pot it up tomorrow, either into another pot I might have under the house waiting for a big tree, or trim the roots some more. There's some new growth up top, bit hard to see in the below pics.

Am looking past its current telegraph pole audition pose and thinking if it survives the massive hair cut (from my predecessors and myself on the roots) will try an air layer mid way up, few inches below the fork, then have two for the price of FREE!

Am loving the bark on the trunk. Trunk is about an inch thick. Once potted, will photograph again in detail, and with standard unit of measurement beer ruler.

This is only my 2nd/3rd Callistemon, so I know I should be able to keep it alive and nice to have some material to play with.

bottlebrush.png

[shibui]

Good pick up.
Callistemon is one of the hardy species I always list when talking about urban bonsai collecting. They are quite easy to transplant and are common in gardens so are worth looking at if/when you hear that someone is renovating or demolishing a garden.

Spent about 30min digging and trimming roots, thinking it'd then fit into a giant 40 cm pot I have, but no, too big.

This appears to be one of the collectors dilemmas. It does not matter how generous we are in estimating, the tree is always bigger than it looks
BTW, I would probably have trimmed the roots quite a bit shorter than you appear to have done. Those roots are going to need reducing at some stage to fit into a bonsai pot. The dilemma is whether to do it now at collection knowing the top has been drastically reduced OR wait until there's more foliage to help new roots grow. Maybe waiting for growth is a better option for evergreen species like this but I always opt for root reduction at collecting for deciduous.

[legoman_iac]

BTW, I would probably have trimmed the roots quite a bit shorter than you appear to have done. Those roots are going to need reducing at some stage to fit into a bonsai pot. The dilemma is whether to do it now at collection knowing the top has been drastically reduced OR wait until there's more foliage to help new roots grow. Maybe waiting for growth is a better option for evergreen species like this but I always opt for root reduction at collecting for deciduous.

Many dilemmas!!! Am potting up today, was worried I trimmed too much already ... will trim a bit more then. Thanks again, as always, for your experience and confidence to trim more!

[legoman_iac]

All potted yesterday, hacked away some more roots to fit this pot, which is about 40 inches across. Yuzu Beer for Unit of Measure.

potted_lowres.jpg

[legoman_iac]

This tree seems quite happy ... had some flowers burst while I was away in September (my bonsai sitters took some blurry photos, luckily their water skills far exceeded their photography skills). Thought that was the end of the flowers for the year but am seeing a bunch more branches getting ready to flower. Might try to air layer this tree as it seems fairly healthy now, despite the caterpillar in the pot!

school_bottlebrush_lowres.jpg