AusBonsai

I have started growing a lot of allocasuarina I really like this genus and think they are one of out finest native species for bonsai. Finding nursery stock with good trunk movement is difficult so I bought a load of tube stock and wired the trunks when they were very young. This year some of these ones will go in the ground, I have developed very fibrous root systems on them all so I reckon they will lift easily when the time comes
Craigw

Hey Craig,
Some great material to play with, I agree Allocasuarina should be grown alot more than they are (equisetifolia & cunninghamiana are Casuarina)

The bark on the older littoralis is stunning, I think it has good proportion and doesnt need to be any thicker. A bigger pot would make it quicker to grow the canopy

You have a head start on me with your tubestock. I took the easy care solution and planted 100 torulosa & littoralis ts in a couple of grow beds, after the obligatory chop top & bottom. Most appear to have survived the initial butchery

This is a cunninghamiana 2yr old trainer I planted out 3 yrs ago, it was lopped 18mths ago & now has a layer about 4' up the trunk. Its sibling was pruned heavily & regularly. 18mths later it went back into a pot no trouble. Matt

Hi Matt, will be interesting to see if they grow so quickly here. I am after small trees so won't let them take off like yours.
The bark on the older littoralis is fantastic and shows the advantage of pot growing, I think the fissures in the bark are much finer when the tree is contained.
Craigw

It has the advantage of living on the edge of a drainage pond To be honest it doesnt make any difference, the 3rd of that lot of seedlings is on a dry mountain & is even bigger

I think it is true of most trees bark when grown slowly.

Nice Craig! The littoralis is certainly stunning
Craig I recently purchased some torulosa tube stock and I was curious as to how to proceed other than wiring for movement early on?
I am specifically wondering at what point in the process from tube stock you started sorting the roots?
Did you initially spread the root ball and comb it out when repotting the tubes? And at this stage did you prune any roots or did that process beginner at a later date?
Thanks for any help/advice you can give me Craig.
Cheers, Dario.

Dario, you need to wire while the wood is very young, at that stage you can virtually tie knots with them. Once the wood gets even a little older it becomes very turgid and just snaps.
I would do the root work in mid december but you may be able to do that a little earlier in melb, just be guided by the night temps once they come up a bit then you can hit them. With the tubes I do a kill or cure root prune first up and get them properly sorted, there seems to be very few losses. Bury the nebari quite deep in the pot so the fine roots don't dry out
Move them up one pot size at a time they seem to grow much more quickly when the pots are quite tight with roots.
Once they have settled down from the root work then mulch them with ferts.
Try to get the sacrifice branches as low as possible and bring the main trunk up section by section. Wire, grow, prune and repeat on and on. Sometimes you need to cut the sac. branches back to restore vigour to the main trunk
Craigw

Looking good Craig !!! We have some torulosa in the ground that are going gang busters. Putting serious meat on the trunk in a very short time. I will try to do a progression in due time.

Thanks so much Craig! That is a real help to me and I very much appreciate it
Thanks again, Dario.

Hi Tony, I would be interested to know about the field grown torulosa
Did you prep them first i.e. root work etc
are you letting them grow on one trunk then doing a major chop, or using sacrifice branches ?
whats the time frame for a decent trunk ?
With thanks
Craigw

craigw60 wrote:Hi Tony, I would be interested to know about the field grown torulosa
Did you prep them first i.e. root work etc
are you letting them grow on one trunk then doing a major chop, or using sacrifice branches ?
whats the time frame for a decent trunk ?
With thanks
Craigw

Early days Craig this lot were established 2m high nursery stock that had the root ball reduced by half, trunk chopped down to approx 200mm. all popped like crazy up and down the trunks, were then further grown in pots for 6 months and put in the ground 6 mnths ago. Once in the ground tops toook off and bases began to flare !!! I hope to get some radical movement by chopping and redirecting leaders. Will also possibly trench them when i do trunk chops. Maybe do the final root work in orchid pots later. Again its early days and as much as i have some plans im learning as i go and flying off the cuff. Usually thats works for me

Great post and advice Craig, thanks very much for posting
Do you do anything special after repotting or root work?

Regards,
Steven

Thanks for that Steven.
Because I do any scary root work on the trees when they are of little value subsequent root pruning is pretty straight forward, I would say just a bit of light shade until they start moving again which should happen pretty quickly. This seems to be a pretty forgiving genus.
Craigw