Mike Hennigan
Chumono
This is a Spiraea japonica 'Goldmound’ that I bought at my local agway last summer. It has bright lime green foliage, sometimes more golden depending on the time of year and sun exposure, which makes it really stand out color wise in my bonsai garden. It has lovely pink flowers that I have been viciously removing at the first signs of their existence.
Anyone familiar with Spirea as a landscape plant knows that they put out long unbranching shoots with a flower head at the end each year, and each winter usually experience a lot of dieback on all of these shoots. Their behavior in the landscape seems to indicate they are not a good candidate for developing fine ramification. Though not popular in bonsai culture, they have been used. Information is extremely limited for Spirea in bonsai it seems.
I chose to pay the meager fee for this material based on one thing alone, the trunk was exceptionally interesting. Knowing nothing about Spirea as bonsai I picked this up for the bulbous and grotesque beauty of the exposed roots. It reminded me of a banyan tree native to Mordor perhaps. When I removed it from the nursery can this spring I uncovered about twice as much usable “trunk” and was pleasantly surprised. Basically the “trunk” is one big fat bulbous root, with a number of smaller roots growing down around it. I do not have a picture of it while it was in the nursery can but it was a pretty big container and I ended up pruning off 90% of the roots probably to get it into the appropriately sized pot. This was actually the first repot I did this spring as buds were swelling very early, with no regard for the continuing frosts. I kept it inside on a sunny windowsill for a couple weeks after the repot until frosts subsided. Here it is just after repot:
A day after this pic I mounded more soil into the “aerial” roots to fill out the open spaces and hoping to get them to branch out and build more density.
Here it is with a full head of hair a week ago:
And after selective defoliation of the inner leaves, which were starting to looking crummy anyways. But the idea is to increase airflow and light into the interior to encourange new interior growth that I can build ramification with.
We’ll see what can be done with Spirea and ramification. If there ever was a fine candidate for Walter Pall’s hedge trimming method I imagine this would be it. So I may just end up taking that approach, while intentionally pruning off adventitious buds that won’t be contributing to the branching I want. Even if constant dieback is a theme with this tree, I will never have a shortage of new shoots to replace them with. Styling and design wise I think the only option is for a broom-like spreading banyan sort of image. I think this tree could really make a fine accent plant even if it will never be able to stand on its own right.
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Anyone familiar with Spirea as a landscape plant knows that they put out long unbranching shoots with a flower head at the end each year, and each winter usually experience a lot of dieback on all of these shoots. Their behavior in the landscape seems to indicate they are not a good candidate for developing fine ramification. Though not popular in bonsai culture, they have been used. Information is extremely limited for Spirea in bonsai it seems.
I chose to pay the meager fee for this material based on one thing alone, the trunk was exceptionally interesting. Knowing nothing about Spirea as bonsai I picked this up for the bulbous and grotesque beauty of the exposed roots. It reminded me of a banyan tree native to Mordor perhaps. When I removed it from the nursery can this spring I uncovered about twice as much usable “trunk” and was pleasantly surprised. Basically the “trunk” is one big fat bulbous root, with a number of smaller roots growing down around it. I do not have a picture of it while it was in the nursery can but it was a pretty big container and I ended up pruning off 90% of the roots probably to get it into the appropriately sized pot. This was actually the first repot I did this spring as buds were swelling very early, with no regard for the continuing frosts. I kept it inside on a sunny windowsill for a couple weeks after the repot until frosts subsided. Here it is just after repot:
A day after this pic I mounded more soil into the “aerial” roots to fill out the open spaces and hoping to get them to branch out and build more density.
Here it is with a full head of hair a week ago:
And after selective defoliation of the inner leaves, which were starting to looking crummy anyways. But the idea is to increase airflow and light into the interior to encourange new interior growth that I can build ramification with.
We’ll see what can be done with Spirea and ramification. If there ever was a fine candidate for Walter Pall’s hedge trimming method I imagine this would be it. So I may just end up taking that approach, while intentionally pruning off adventitious buds that won’t be contributing to the branching I want. Even if constant dieback is a theme with this tree, I will never have a shortage of new shoots to replace them with. Styling and design wise I think the only option is for a broom-like spreading banyan sort of image. I think this tree could really make a fine accent plant even if it will never be able to stand on its own right.
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