I came across a bald cypress seedling at the edge of our burn pile about a month ago near our 20-ft tree. I don't know if it germinated during the flooding we had earlier this year or if heat caused it to germinate, but I put it in a pot and would love to develop it into a bonsai. It has doubled in size since I dug it up. I have it in a 1-gallon nursery pot and keep it fairly moist. It's 9 inches tall and growing like crazy. When should I start pinching it back? When would be a good time to transplant it to a bonsai pot? Should I keep it in a tray of water?
I'm new to bonsai, so I have a lot of questions. I'd be grateful for any advice.
Bald cypress bonsai from seedling
Allow it to grow vertically w/o pinching. Chop it when the trunk caliper is as thick as you want the finished tree to be. Why didn't you allow it to develop in the ground where it would have thickened at a fraction of the time it will take in a container?
Al
Hi Al. Thanks for the advice. I wanted to leave it to grow a bit, but it was at the edge of our burn pile and I knew it wouldn't make it long there.
Lol - good enough for me!! Sound reasoning. ;o) Good luck with your new pet. :-)
Al
May I chime in?
I had two bald cypress from seed. Long story short. Planted one and it died. The second one is in a bucket that holds water and it's three yrs old, I think. I chop off the top and branches come out double, but some came out lower also. I want the lower branches to grow more or faster. What do you think I should do?
It will go dormant soon, I should wait?
This message was edited Nov 4, 2009 1:28 PM
Cut back the top hard. Allow the lower branches to grow freely until they reach the thickness you want & then start developing ramification on the lower branches. The middle branches get pruned back somewhere between as hard as you prune the top & bottom branches. This develops taper in the tree and is a useful tool in developing the tree so the oldest/lower branches are the heaviest - like in nature.
Wait until the tree is dormant, or just before budswell in spring (better). If the tree still has green foliage, you may as well allow it to continue to make the energy the tree is storing now, right up until it goes dormant.
Al
Thanks Al, I was over reading your soil thread :-)
I couldn't wait, I've been dying to chop the upper growth off because there's hardly anything on the bottom. There was one large branch coming out and I cut just below that. I can't believe I did that. But there's still a month or two of good weather here.
Rob Kempinski did a demonstration for our bonsai group, you'd think I would have learned something. But his 3 yr old plant was so much thicker because it grew in the wild.
The soil has to be ammended also, does the tree need recovery time before that? I might just dig a big hole, line it with plastic and plant it in that, like an in ground pool of dirt.
After ...
Mojogrey, can you get some seeds from your tree? I've got some pretty good things in my trade list.
I just reread this thread. Al, I'm sorry, I didn't listen to a thing you said. I read it but I didn't see it. When the student is ready. . . Although I didn't learn from your message, you were standing by when I got up the courage to cut. The poor thing can always grow back.
Are you learning from this Mojogrey? You can learn alot from other peoples' mistakes.
Based on what it looks like now, I think you might want to train a low branch to the vertical as a new (future) leader and let the plant grow wild (or put it in the ground) in preparation for another taper-inducing chop even lower than the one you just made.
Al
I would have never thought of that. I'll give it a try.
2 leaders will grow and shade the bottom and keep the bottom of the tree from getting sunlight. As it has twice before.
Should I gently wire up one of the lower branches and tilt the plant in it's new living arrangement?
This lowest branch (I think I'm lucky) has wood growth on it. My opinion? I think it's perfect, but not sure what to do with it.
I will wait this time Al, and learn some patients.
But it may kill me :-}
I can tell you from experience that if you're impatient, you need more plants. ;o) In all seriousness, if you have only one or two plants, you want them to be an immediate bonsai, so you pick & prune at them, and they never grow or develop appreciably - never reach peak vitality. The key is to have lots of plants so you always have lots of bonsai chores to do - then, you never get bored, you feed your need to nurture, and you can 'stand' ignoring a plant while it grows wild & regains vitality so it can tolerate the next indignity you heap on it. ;o) Once you get deeply into bonsai, you'll discover that all your plants don't look good all the time. I have lots of nice material in bonsai pots, & plenty of really nice material growing on in pots, but at any given time, probably only 1 in 10 looks really good because the others are building up energy reserves after the last operation, or FOR the next. A good part of bonsai is knowing how to manage the tree's energy.
It's difficult for me to give you advice unless I know you're committed to another taper-inducing chop further down the trunk after the tree recovers. I know that's what I would do, but then there's that thing I wrote about above - I don't care if I have to wait a year or two before I can chop again. I'm perfectly willing to have a tree I'm the only one that can see the potential in, in return for an exceptional tree 10 years down the road. That might half kill a new bonsai practitioner that only has a couple of trees. ;o)
Once you commit to selecting a new leader, everything above it becomes a sacrifice branch. After the new leader takes off, you remove what's above it develop the tree based on the new leader. You do need to be sure that growth on the older and currently larger trunk that occurs above the new leader doesn't interfere with the light the new leader is getting.
Now is not a good time to be wiring because it creates cracks in the cambium. Because sap flow will be stopping soon, this increases the probability of the branch dying because of dessication, so I would wait until spring to either wire or tie the new leader into position, roughly parallel to the current trunk.
I hope your answers were in there somewhere.
Al
Absloutely, thank you.
There is always a question about when,
when to trim the leaves to grow smaller versions
when to trim, or chop, different species of plants,
when to dig them up from the wild.
I'll find some reference to the different trees' energy. Someone from our group is putting together a trim calendar because every tree is different. If we get that together I'll share it with the forum.
And P.S. I will 'cut and paste' just about everything you say. You should write a book. But then you would have no time for us at DG.
Do you have pictures of you trees?
This message was edited Nov 6, 2009 4:21 PM
A suggestion....new bonsai enthusiasts with more enthusiasm than trees can wile away the down time by reading bonsai books! I just purchased a used copy of Deborah Koreshoof's out-of-print "Bonsai: its Art, Science, History and Philosophy" and I think it will keep me busy over the winter. Great book! And there is even a month by month calendar of activities.
check out the bald cypress I brought home today. A fellow member of my bonsai group was selling them. I got 3 but this is the one. I can "see" the future of this little bugger. Hey just like when I met the man to be my husband!
Here's another photo, I like the low branches
