Hi Pearcy
No worries at all! quite interesting to see this old post, i had forgotten about it. A bit embarrassing actually
a lot has changes since those days 6 years back.
So first bending id use raffia on think branches, anything above 8mm. they have a rather brittle tough fibre and snap quite abruptly. Raffia wrapped very tightly allows for more bending. Smaller branches you can wire as normal but once again delicacy is key. Wiring is important like all bonsai in its production to produce a fine image so dont be put off because of there brittleness. Good knowledge of function of its wood will allow for wiring to take place. it all comes down to technique.
So the past few years have been quite educational for me in regards, to both Sannantha virgata (formally Baekea), the Myrtaceae family in which it is from, and many native species in general from both grown and yamadori material.
Sannantha require lots of water, but are tolerant to less, i grow my tree in substrate, Diatomite, zeolite and fine grade pine bark at 3:1:3 . It does well in this mix in my climate and does well with the high levels of drainage.
I prune during the last third of the flowering time in November as this is when the tree puts on its largest, strongest push of growth and then again at the beginning of march allowing it time to bud out and put on a small amount of growth before winter. it is then allowed to grow until flowering in October/November. When pruning i take all the current growth back to its previous cut leaving a few inter-nodes on the current growth while also thinning to 2 pairs where there is a cluster at the old cut. Its important to keep on top of the structure of these trees as they are very dense and inter-nodes are extremely small. This pruning although very time consuming and fiddly ( this tree takes up to 8 hours to complete) is worth the effort as it avoids die back on any branch and produces healthy sustainable structure. It is important to note that you need to look at the strength of each area on the tree to avoid the dying back of branches when doing this pruning. healthy, strong growth will be tighter and be shorter, these should be cut as i described above. Weaker growth will be quite long without any side shoots, this growth shouldn't be cut as hard, maybe rather in half or replaced by something stronger on the branch. Balance is always important for the health and show-ability of the tree.
Repotting id recommend be done in Autumn, or when i prefer, After flowering when i prune. The reason behind the pruning and repotting at this time is; Many trees in the Myrtaceae including Melaleuca, leptospermum etc produce there most abundant and strongest flush of growth in early summer, usually after flowering from what i have observed on a very generalised point of view. They create a lot of energy through the previous months and then use this energy in there push in the summer. We can utilise this energy buy pruning and root pruning at this time while sustaining the trees energy production.
In terms of feeding, i treat it like my other trees in which are at a developed stage, feeding with organic feeds once every 6 weeks and once every 8 weeks in the inactive period.
Full sun position too!
Hugh
) I'll do my best to adjust to the conditions south of the boarder and see how I go. Thanks for taking the time to write such an extensive reply.