Thickening Olive branches?

[Shane]

Back in 2007, Marco Invernizzi gave the advice at the AABC conference that to thicken up olive bonsai branches quickly, you should let them grow long, keeping only a few leaves at the end of the branch and cutting off all side shoots. Well, I've been doing that now for about five years on this, my big yamadori olive, with no success. The branches are still whip thin. Others that that had clip and grow have thickened similarly or better, though still thin. What am I doing wrong?


Th big olive, around May 2012, lateat photo, pre cleaning up my bonsai area.

P.S. Got myself a photo file size reducer for my phone and can now host images on Tapatalk, but still not on ausbonsai. (?)

[bonzaidog]

Hi Spooky....Nice start !What's your fertilising regime and sunlight situation?, it sort of looks a little, well, not powering on if you get what I mean!
Also what soil mix is it in,and when was it's last repot. May be a good idea to put in in a grow box for a while to speed things up, I find they can slow down quite a lot
when put into smaller pots.
Hope this helps ....Dog.

[Shane]

Hi Bonsaidog,
This olive is in a 900mmx600mm pot, with a height of just under a metre; had to tell in above photo I know. It was originally styled with me by Hirotoshi Saito. It was repotted last in Aug-2012, and half the base was cut off underneath to bring the height down. Next repot I'll do the other half, so it drops an inch or two. It is in debco bonsai potting mix; as are all my trees. I have just recently added fertiliser baskets with vermicast.

What I'm wondering is if people have better luck not pruning the branches they want to thicken and just let them run? It seems counter-intuitive to cut all the side branches and leaves.
Cheers S.

Bonsai was supposed to keep me away from the computer; so I got a smart phone to take outside to my trees.

[Jow]

Hi Spooky,

Your problem lies in ballance. Your canopy has hundreds of leaves while your sacrifice branches have 5-10. The tree sees the sacrifice branches as weak and as a result doesnt give them any reasorces which basically means they wont extend.

Let them grow more leaves until they start to extend rapidly. At the same time keep the main canopy trimmed back and even partially defoliate it from time to time while leaving the sacrifices in full leaf.

Feed heavily with a range of ferts (what ever you can get on special) and see how you go. Once the sacrifice branches start to power away you can remove some of their inner growth, but i would only do this if it is shading other inner branches you want to keep. More growth on a branch, the thicker it gets.

Good luck.

Joe

[kcpoole]

Dunno about taking off leaves and twigs, Seem counter productive to me
Maybe to keep foliage away from the trunk and the trained branches and not so shade them? Once the foliage is out far enough to not hinder to growth and control of your developing branches, let them grow unhindered

For me i just let them grow unhindered and do not touch the sacrifice at all.
I just cut and trim the branches I am going to keep in the final design

Ken

[Pup]

It seems to me that Marco was miss quoted a lot in translation.!.

When ever you wish to enlarge one part of a tree you leave it alone, and prune all other parts as has been pointed out. Olives are no different than ficus or maples.
I have had in the past to thicken a branch let it grow for two seasons untouched, while the other parts of the tree have been pruned hard. In some cases total defoliation.
Plenty of ferts again as has been pointed out any good one, even layers of (ugh DL ) plenty of sun and water this time of year.

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Cheers Pup

[Shane]

Thanks Joe and Pup. It makes perfect sense to leave these growing leaves and branchlets instead of pruning them. Would never have done it, except that Marco demonstrated this on the olive he styled at that conference. (See Disc 2 of the conference vid). Changing my regime from today back to the way I treat my other tres smd hopefully can make up for lost time.
Cheers S