2012 in review. Horticultural successes and failures in 2012

[iant]

I was thinking about this for myself and I thought I'd share. I have a lot of little starter plants (3-5 yr old prunus, malus, pumila, chaenomeles, etc) along with some older specimen type pinus and ulmus.

So here's the year in review:

The bad news:

1) killed a 15-20 y.o. juniper nana that I repotted in late winter and heavily pruned a few weeks later. In early spring it was clear it was dead. (note to self don't do too much to juniper in same season.)
2) bent a cedrus atlantica in the late winter into cascade that went very well. It was growing like crazy and very happy during summer but at the end of summer I bent it further to get a better curve and it died about 4-8 wks later. Note to self don't mess with a tree twice in a year especially when the 2nd time is in an inappropriate season.)
3) gave up on my little Hawthorne (Paul's scarlett) starter. Every year it grows okay in early spring and then the leaves get dark around the borders and seem to be either burned by sun or wilting from some kind of rot. Either way it's the 2nd season of the same and it's small so I gave up and it's now composted.
4) bought 2 Cotoneaster micro from Brent that were cruising and growing very well in mid summer (more than doubled in size) but by late summer started to go dark and wilt at the ends of branches from the top down. I think it was an infection that happened because I was watering daily (although soil was free draining.) To water this low hugging plant I ended up getting foliage wet daily. I think next time I'll try to plant it high in the pot and only water soil... They're both dead and composted now.
5) Gave up on a willow that grew fast but then got some kind of mildew thing going... I read some posts here on BN that warned to beware of unstable bonsai trees like willow... so it's composted too.
6) My 4 Hachi Gen JBP's from Brent had a fairly rough repot as I was aggressive in root pruning but they did really well and were happy until the mid-summer attack of the sawfly's. I had needles going vertical down one after the other. I even saw one of the flys at night. Those buggers are mean. I now am going to do a more regular insecticide...
Same trees in the fall started to all develop needle cast. A cedrus Libani got hit by the same needle cast as well. As I was busy with other stuff (fall grape harvest) I missed it for a couple months and so now am reminded to do regular copper or other fungicide. Wow it's tough to keep up with the bugs and fungus and everything!
7) Bare rooted 3 nursery azaleas in the late winter/early spring and repotted. The Kurume died but the 2 Satsuki barely lived. They lost all leaves and looked dead but bounced back eventually. They look fine now.
8) Found out that you gotta watch wire really closely in any tree that's growing well. It may only take a handful of weeks before it's really cutting in.

The good news!

1) Hachi Gen JBPs survived my spring hard root pruning!
2) Started a though-a-4" tile trident maple project that's growing very well. 8 small trees of which one died right away. The center one is the largest. It's grown a ton in 1 season. I'm excited about it and hopeful to get a nice root base out of the project.
3) Bought a JWP on it's own roots from Telperion in early spring that's done well. Didn't die at least!
4) Bought an Acer Palmatum from Telperion that's grown a lot this year. Just going to try to thicken base some before anything else. It's very happy.
5) Ulmus seiju from Brent specimen grew like crazy this summer. Last year (first year I had it, it was a little stagnant in partial shade.) This year I put it in full sun (my backyard gets hot) and it grew a lot. Very happy about that.
6) My transplanted Pacific Madrone is clearly going to survive the transplant (from my mom's front yard (who lives in Santa Rosa.)) It's growing well now in it's 2nd summer since transplant. I'll post more on this one in the future but I'm happy to have it alive. It's about 2.5 inches at the base.

So that's the summary!
All in all not a bad year. I learned some things:
I'll buy another two cotoneasters again from Brent this year and this time try not to water the foliage so much.
I'll try another atlas cascade and this year only mess with it in the winter/spring.
I'll try hard to spray some copper or other fungicide on all of my pines and cedars in the summer through winter to avoid that annoying needle cast.
I'll use the Bayer advanced once or twice a year to try to keep the sawflys away from my pines. Those buggers suck.

Ian

 

[JudyB]

Good synopsis, it is helpful to document what goes wrong, so you don't make the same mistake again later on.
One insult a year has been a good rule of thumb for me...

I'd love to see a pic of the madrone, and the JWP on it's own roots please!

 

[Poink88]

Good thread.

If you don't mind, I will try to make a similar post to chronicle my first year (almost 2012 also) doing bonsai.

It will also include the failures and successes.

 

[iant]

Dario: Sounds good! I'd love to hear about your trees.
Judy: Here's a few photos. I don't have anything that recent on me but these are from earlier this year. The Madrone is even fuller now. The first picture is of it's repotting this spring. When I moved it the spring before I really left the rootball intact and didn't touch it until a year later. I ended up removing a lot of the soil this spring as it was in some pretty wet clay that I didn't want to leave.
The JWP looks about the same now. It's going to need some directional pruning to open it up a bit and choose where I want it to go next spring.
Ian

 

[JudyB]

I've always thought that madrone's would make good bonsai. Dan Robinson has some in the ground at Elandan that he said he would pot up sooner or later...
The Texas madrone's we see at Big Bend are so amazing.

Thanks for the pics, the JWP looks like a nice fatty.

 

[edprocoat]

2012 was the worst year I have ever experienced since messing with Bonsai as kid. I also had more plants than ever before too, and tried more species. I lost my first Jap Maple, it was doomed from the start, everything from a near wreck knocking it out of the pot on the trip home, in the end it died from a disease. I lost 3 juni's from juniper heart rot I bought with a new juniper and it got into 2 others through pruning wounds. I started disinfecting my tools and learned a valuable lesson, do not use bleach! It eats the metal tools. I was told here at B-Nut that rubbing alcohol does the trick and does not hurt the metal and have been using it ever since. I lost 2 nice Thuja's due to the drought and excessive heat in ohio this summer and a great Bird's nest spruce to the florida heat last spring. I usually kept to Tropicals and Juni's and was used to them, Jap Maples burn in the summer sun, get weak from hail damage and are just too much trouble for me. All my tropicals froze this spring when I got p but they all bounced back, surprisingly a holly and another juni did not make it back from the freeze. I had two of my juni's crushed on the way to Fl. the other day, lost a big branch on one and a small branch on the other and they both were bare rooted for almost 3 days so I don't know if either will make it. I will be happy to see '12 gone.

ed

ed

 

[Paradox]

Sorry to hear about your difficulties this year ed.

I guess I was pretty lucky this year. No losses from the heat or anything else this year so far.
A few of my trees were stressed a bit with the heat though.
Ill know better how everyone is when I see how the spring growing starts.
Just hope this winter gets cold enough for long enough so they get a good rest.

I did buy more trees than I probably should have.

 

[fore]

I lost several field grown trees that I dug up this spring to tip blight. God awful, spreads fast and hard to treat. I think I was over aggressive in trimming roots that made it more susceptible. And I lost a collected Ponderosa pine that was collected last spring. A. Smith was kind enough to offer me a replacement.

So this yr., I got a new PP, a field grown huge trident, a gorgeous JBP from Brussels, a future grove's worth of JM seedlings, and a lg. collected RMJ from Jim Doyle/Walter Pall, and two really nice shimpaku's. All doing excellent! Overall, a very good yr. for me

 

[iant]

Just noticed that my landlords gardener threw away my 8 through-a-tile trident project. Arrgggghh! I guess in some countries if there's no leaves on a plant that means it's dead.