AusBonsai

Hi all,

Just sharing my recent potting venture. This little one came from a house guttering and sat in a pot for quite some time. The trunk looks like it has good bit of taper going for it a few good gnarly bits, so I figured I'd give it a go. Looking to turn it into a shohin I think. No before pics unfortunately, I got a bit carried away, but here it is after a trunk chop and a repot: Not sure on species unfortunately, there were a couple of E. maidenii close to it though. Obviously it's early days yet, but any thoughts/criticisms?

Thanks

Hi Myco,

I have not worked with eucs before so forgive me if this is wrong, but aren't they supposed to be near impossible to significantly reduce leaf size on? You may need to have a backup plan for something a little bigger than shohin once the tree has its mature foliage.

Good luck with the tree!

Cheers,
Pearcy.

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Pup has shown on his C. citriodora that you can get very small leaves indeed by pinching after the very first tiny leaflets come out. He lets it grow out towards the end of the season I believe to get strength for the next season. A bonus is that the new shoots are often red, purple, yellow - bright interesting colours.

If you wanted to do that with this tree you'd let it grow over winter, then cut it back to bare wood in, say September or October, and pick from the heaps of bud clusters just one in each cluster, and keep pinching it every time it gets past two little leaflets.

If you want to develop branches, its a different story - let it grow over winter, cut it back, choose your shoots and let them grow strongly to thicken. You can cage-wire them (loose wiring - use search) to get some shape into them if you want, but you need to do it early, and not for long. They harden off, thicken and scar quickly.

Best of luck,

Gavin