AusBonsai

Hey,
This is my first Baekea and i have never been sure on how to trim the foliage correctly. As you can see it has been let go! & could be far better!..... Any tips? This is one I seen at the 2012 Gold Coast / Tweed Bonsai show. Stunningly cute little tree!! Cheers
Lucas

hey lucas

i love baekea

i only have one and its very small and no where near as impressive as yours haha
but i did do some research and got some good advice on here about them and
i do remember reading that most people when dealing with a tree like this one
that they use a hedging style approach when trimming the foliage
which it give a lovely smooth nice neat shape and thats fine for getting that shape initially
but later on the canopy will get very dense and the inner growth will weaken and die
and to have a convincing looking canopy it needs to be thinned out and the general rules apply
no crossing branches, growing under another branch so on and so forth
so if it were mine i would clean out the fine inner dead branches
then figure out what you want the canopy to eventually look like
then trim any foliage that is growing out of your final 'vision'
using the hedge style approach until your happy with the way it looks
then refine the branch structure and thin it out to let light into the inner growth
which will balance the vigour of the canopy

i hope this helps and if anyone else has a better approach i would be very interested in hearing as well

cheers
matt

GREAT advice Matt!
Thank You Muchly
Lucas

That is great advice Matt

They shoot back well Lucas, so clean the dead stuff and then cut it where you want. Then deal with the regrowth like Matt suggested. Layers and spaces are the important things in the long term, otherwise they look too young, even with an old trunk.

Tony

Massive fan of that little tree from the Gold Coast show.

Looks so so so cool.

Constant trimming as soon as the shoots sstart to elongate.
Cut them back as hard as you like
Ken

Tony Bebb wrote:That is great advice Matt

They shoot back well Lucas, so clean the dead stuff and then cut it where you want. Then deal with the regrowth like Matt suggested. Layers and spaces are the important things in the long term, otherwise they look too young, even with an old trunk.

Tony

Thanks Tony
Lucas

Boics wrote:Massive fan of that little tree from the Gold Coast show.

Looks so so so cool.

Same
Lucas

kcpoole wrote:Constant trimming as soon as the shoots sstart to elongate.
Cut them back as hard as you like
Ken

Thanks Ken
Lucas