AusBonsai

Howdy,

After seeing what is possible with casuarinas on this site I've fallen in love with them and I don't even own one!

A mate of mine has a property full of them (not sure what variety they are though) and said I can take whatever I want (All you bonsai fanatics would be licking your chops if you saw this place)

Before I go digging anything up, I wanted to know if I can trunk chop below the foliage just leaving a bare trunk? I've sifted through the casuarina thread here but haven't found an answer (sorry if it's there and I've missed it).

Any advice would be great!

Cheers

BonsaiBuffoon wrote:Howdy,

After seeing what is possible with casuarinas on this site I've fallen in love with them and I don't even own one!

A mate of mine has a property full of them (not sure what variety they are though) and said I can take whatever I want (All you bonsai fanatics would be licking your chops if you saw this place)

Before I go digging anything up, I wanted to know if I can trunk chop below the foliage just leaving a bare trunk? I've sifted through the casuarina thread here but haven't found an answer (sorry if it's there and I've missed it).

Any advice would be great!

Cheers

Last spring I trunk chopped a young ( 4 or 5 years old) Casuarina Torulsa down to about 150mm high and it has bounced back very well. Just yesterday I removed some excess thin branching to continue its training. Not sure about very old trees but from experience they do bud back well.

Grant

I have dug one up and chopped it hard, just remember they need lots of water when first removed from the ground. Unfortunately I lost it some years later when I repotted and didn't keep in water.

At some point in the future you may want to chop below the first branch anyway to encourage a burst of new branching, so it might as well be whilst you dig it. It is not common for a Casuarina to die back to the base if you trunk chop below the branches. However, it is a very small possibility, depending more on the species of Casy. Between October and Feb is a great time to do what you plan, so go for it.

And as already stated make sure you keep the water up, especially with these sweltering conditions we've been having around Syd.
Try to keep a lot of fine feeder roots on the tree, but with Casuarina in the ground they notoriously don't have many close to the base unfortunately. Do your best, and it will be fine to go for it regardless.

One word of advice: If you plan on trunk chopping before you dig it out, leave enough room for you to grab hold of it whilst you yank it out of the ground. Don't grab it by the base, as depending on the species you might damage the beautiful aged bark. Some barks are as hardy as Chuck Norris, whilst others will crumble from grabbing it.

Good luck, and put up pictures. They make the best bonsai in Australia

We lopped some mature trees in a garden and the stumps (30cm diam) are now covered with new shoots. They survive repeated slashing on the side of the road so are pretty resilient. As Rory says, very good for bonsai.
Note that some species sucker freely from the roots so when you dig you may find your tree is growing straight from a large root of a nearby tree.

All great advise guys. Thanks

I'd just like to say what an awesome site. So many members happy to share their experience and knowledge to help out drongos like me. It's so hard to find info on the web about bonsai specifics and particularly Aussie natives, and here you just drop a question on the forum and bingo, you've got the answers. A big thanks to all members and site administrators

cheers