Pandorea Jasminiodes ..wonga-wonga vine

[bodhidharma]

I have had this Jasmine in a pot for a long time(10 years) after digging it up on my property. It took up the whole side of a building which i wanted to renovate. Thinking it must be a huge trunk i dug it up to find this guy. It is old but they put all there energy into the vine and the trunk grows very slowly. Being a Aussie Native made it worth keeping. This year it gave me a surprise and flowered. Silly i know but still very pretty.

[Jamie]

interesting that all the energy goes in to the vine section of the tree and doesnt put energy into the trunk and root system?
was it a large root system bohdi? it doesnt seem to be as the pot is quite small but this could be after a couple of years of collection with reduction techniques?


nice though mate


jamie

[bodhidharma]

Hi Jamie, Jasmines are notoriously slow trunk growers being able to extend there vines for tens of metres and take over whole buildings yet stay relatively small. I do not know how this works and havent bothered studying it. Maybe someone more learned can enlighten us This particular guy would have been a minimum 50-60 metres wrapped around an old trellis on the side of a building.

[anttal63]

Cute as bodhi! Love to see it in a glazed pot if it continues to produce flowers.

[MelaQuin]

Interesting about the trunk growth. You have solved a mystery. I have a rambunctious, robust Akebia quinata vine that has been in the ground for over 5 years and grows like a maniac requiring constant pruning back. I had hoped to make a bonsai of it but the trunks are pathetic, not worth the effort. Also, knowing how robust and rampant the growth is it would probably be hard to keep as a bonsai ... I can see the vines trailing all across a bonsai bench wrapping around the other trees.....

[Kunzea]

Astute observations on the relatively slow 'trunk' growth of vines, while the plants still produce massively long 'stems'.

Vines mostly grow in warm to hot, humid forests of the tropics and sub tropics. There are exceptions, but they get pretty uncommon as the climate becomes cooler further from the equator (or higher up on tropical mountains for that matter). The habitat that vines have evolved to use is one where the way that they can reach and stay in the brightest light (canopy tops) is to grow upwards quickly. They don't have the massive wood producing capacities of those species we look on as trees, but they do have exceptional capacities to grow long, relatively thin shoots rapidly. They respond to light and dark in such a way that they tend to coil around objects, like tree trunks, and so give their 'weak' trunks suport as they head for the light. Once in the canopy, they continue to extend with the trees' growth upwards, while maintaining their own root systems through their thinnish trunks. Massive vines can extend across more than one tree canopy too. It is a different life strategy than used by trees, but it works.

As far as using them for bonsai, they can cause you to think hard about what you are trying to achieve. If you only want trees that meet the standards of classical Japanese bonsai, then vines are probably not for you. If you have a bit of an artistic bent, the you may well find forms that are both different and attractive and that make the most of what vines have to offer. They might liberate 'your artist within'! Remembering that scale is important to the illusion in bonsai can help that process, but probably most important will be remembering what Japanese and Chinese masters have often taught and that is to find the 'tree within' and not to force the plant into shapes it isn't suited to.

You might think of something along a literati line, or a phoenix graft where the 'trunk' represents a separate tree on which the vine wraps and displays itself. Vines can be as old as the trees on which they climb. There is much room for creative use of vines, but they will probably be quite unlike the classical forms. Good luck and good artistic work with an uncommon 'bonsai' material.
K

[bodhidharma]

Thanks for the detailed explanation Kunzea, muchly appreciated. I agree, vines can be used to great effect by the artist if they work with the material and not against it. I have many that i am playing with.

[Kunzea]

Hi Bodhi
I'd be most interested to see the results of your 'playing' with vines as bonsai. Have you any pics you can share?
K

[bodhidharma]

I certainly will organize that for you Kunzea give me a day or two

[craigw60]

I have a trachelospermum jasmamoides growing as a full cascade. May be more of an interesting tub plant than a bonsai but gives me pleasure and the perfume is good. I suspect there is a whole raft of climbers out there suitable to bonsai culture you just have to be prepared to do lots of pruning.

[bodhidharma]

I have a trachelospermum jasmamoides growing as a full cascade. May be more of an interesting tub plant than a bonsai but gives me pleasure and the perfume is good. I suspect there is a whole raft of climbers out there suitable to bonsai culture you just have to be prepared to do lots of pruning.

And lots and lots andlotttttssss

[bodhidharma]

I thought i would share this years flowering of the Wonga Wonga and it is a welcome sight in the depths of Summer. I have not come up with a style for this vine but still enjoy its flowering. It has to extend to flower so as Kunzea stated, i might have to go with a cascade. The cascade could stop its flowering being an Aussie native so, maybe a windswept Anyway, it is a novelty and is pretty.

[Roger]

thanks bodhi
I love seeing the flowers - you must be treating it well indeed.
Roger (once on a Kunzea kick, but have been weaned from it

[MattA]

Hey Bodhi,

What a sweetheart, the flowers really make beauty of an otherwise nondescript tree. I have seen wonga vines in the wild growing up into the tops of trees, sprawling amongst the shrubbery & also cascading down an exposed hillside, as long as plenty of light is available then anything is possible.

Matt

[Roger]

Matt
Thanks for describing where you've seen the wonga in the wild. I've not seen it so much appreciate your notes.