AusBonsai

Crepe myrtle I have been working on for 6 years.
Just wanted to show the Awesome Autumn colours they have.

Looks great, what did it look like when you started?

There are two as landscape trees at my place and they look amazing every year, very reliable autumn colour though not so reliable on the flowering quality.This year was hot and dry so got really good flowering

Was just the base when I started. Have grown all the branches since.
With bonsai probably never get flowers close enough to the trees outline bit the bark and Autumn colours make up for that.

Good tree Sammy, and the colour is most impressive.
Might be time to shout this tree as new pot?

Nice!

Sammy D wrote:

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Crepe myrtle I have been working on for 6 years.
Just wanted to show the Awesome Autumn colours they have.

Beautiful!!! Gotta as though- that bottom-right branch, that thick guy coming from low-down on the right of the trunk, is that a sacrifice branch or are you going to try and work it into the final design? Am worried it'll never get the girth to look natural there (though I only have 2 mature crapes so take my thoughts for what they're worth!)

You wouldn't happen to have a progression album would you? 6yrs is a while, would love to see their development! When you said 'just the base' did you collect it w/ roots or was it propagated?

I'm in the US so it's mid-spring here and mine are just growing like weeds (already finished putting out a 2nd flush of growth this year ), I'd been led to think that flowering is wholly dependent upon letting spring-growth's growing-tips go un-touched and bloom so if you're pruning at the 'wrong' time it can mess with flowering... you say:

"With bonsai probably never get flowers close enough to the trees outline bit the bark and Autumn colours make up for that."

what do you mean by its 'outline'? Am confused here :/ I only got 1 flower last year but that crape was recently-collected so no biggie, now though it's wanting to start setting buds but I've been pinching tips on both of my larger crapes to increase the # of growing-tips in my canopy (as well as keep growth moving- like bougies they seem to grow branches to 2-3' real fast and then halt, presumably just to start getting into flowering mode?), was expecting this intervention will give me a ton of flowers once summer comes!

[by the way since you're clearly proficient w/ crapes, would you mind taking a peek at a thread I just put up asking for help w/ mine? They're nothing like yours lol but sometime I will find better stock and in the meanwhile just want to do whatever I can w/ what I've gotten ;D https://www.ausbonsai.com.au/forum/view ... 27#p255827 ]

Hi iheartbougs. The thing is they flower on the end of the late springs growth. So last trim may be late spring. The new growth then extends for a couple months. Then at the end of that a long flower will come. Problem is by the time it flowers the shoots and flowers are 1 foot from the tree. This will never look good. Some of the dwarf varieties it will get closer but will always be a struggle. Great news though. They have great bark and nice small leaves as well as great Autumn colours. Go for it.
That thin bottom branch to the right will be there forever.

Sammy, nice Lagerstroemia, I look at them all day at work, they are probably a bit under utilised as bonsai. It's really like that you are prepared to sacrifice flowers for form, colour and texture. Not a lot of bonsai folk are prepared to do that, it's refreshing to hear

Cheers,
Mojo

Mine hasn’t changed colour well and is dropping its leaves now. Too many hot days snuck into this autumn.