5yr Native Tree Challenge - Dingus's ilex decidua (Possumhaw)

[LittleDingus]

This thread will track my efforts with ilex decidua over the next 5 years...or until they all die...

I also have ilex verticillata in the challenge:

5yr Native Tree Challenge - Dingus's ilex verticillata (Winter Berry)

This thread will track my efforts at ilex verticillata over the next 5 years...or until I kill the trees...whichever comes first! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilex_verticillata At the time of joining this challenge, I lived in Missouri just outside of Kansas City. According to my best...

www.bonsainut.com

but that is mostly because at the time I couldn't find decidua. Verticillata's native range of on the very fringe of what the rules allow whereas decidua's native range is my back yard

Ilex decidua

Ilex decidua - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I eventually found decidua available through the Missouri Department of Conservation

Order Seedlings

mdc.mo.gov

so I ordered some! $0.44 a seedling when ordered in a bundle of 25...not a bad deal at all

They arrived yesterday packaged with some wild plum I didn't realize I ordered.



That's the wild plum sticking out the top of the package. I needed to open up the package to see the holly.



The Department of Conservation counted 25 seedlings, I counted 26...close enough for government work

Here's a typical seedling.



I'm quite happy with them for the price

For now, I counted out 10 and planted them in a 10 gallon grow bag that I folded over to half height. Think of it as a round Anderson flat...of sorts. Cumminty potted for now because I'm running out convenient grow space!

For now, these 10 will just grow out a bit. I'm not planning to do much with them this first year other than let them grow. I did make sure to put some of them at an angle for some interest...but I did leave a couple upright too.



The soil is ~70% NAPA 8822 (DE) and 30% chunky coconut coir with an ~1" coir mulch on the top.

I picked out 8 more and potted them in a little smaller (3 gallon) grow bag also folded over to be half height. These I might also let grow unmolested this first year but am thinking these might be experiments...maybe a cascade or 3, early wiring, grow-n-chop, whatever strikes my fancy.



The downside to ordering a yearling pack like this is that they come ungendered. My hope is with 25 that at least some males and females survive my abuse long enough to be identified! As near as I can tell, it's possible they can flower at age 2 but more likely by age 4-5. That means I may need to keep as many as I can alive for the next 3-4 years before I can start to distinguish who is what! My hope is to only keep a single male (maybe a second as a backup) but then whittle down to only the best of the females. Whatever is left (if anything!) I hope to return to nature.

 

[LittleDingus]

While separating and potting out what I had, there were some interesting individuals that had crooks down low that naturally made it easier to get the trunks close together.



I thought about how to try some for clump style. My issue was, not knowing who was male and who was female, how do you form a clump? It would suck to have a 5 trunk clump but only one female. 5 males would be ok. 5 females would be outstanding. But 2 males and 3 females would make an odd with some areas dense with berries and some sparse.

But, given how well some of these fit together, I had to take a chance! What I decided on was 2 clumps of 3 and a twin trunk. I figure with 3 trunks, if they are all male or all female...that's fine. If they are 2 and 1...then I cut the duplicate (maybe) and have a twin trunk with one of each that could be styled to have a large female canopy full of berries and a smaller companion without.

It's a thought anyway! Here are the groups I put together:



These were all planted into a single 5 gallon grow bag with the same DE/coir mix and mulch as mentioned above.

 

[LittleDingus]

This poor guy never leafed out



It is one of the ones I bound into a cluster of 3.

But everyone else?



Welp, they are all doing just fine

I don't know at what age/size these guys bloom...I should probably do some research! I'd like to start whittling down the numbers before they start to get too big. I don't need 24 large holly bushes!

I'm guessing I'm stuck with them for a couple of years before I can start making positive gender IDs, though...

 

[LittleDingus]

These guys are starting to get a bit crowded!




It looks like I've only lost 2 trunks from the initial set. I lost one trunk in the bag with 10 and I lost one trunk in a clump of 3.

It looks like these guys sucker readily so now I'm wishing I would have made a few more clump attempts. I'd love to get a male fused with a female to do some odd styling with

I still don't know what age to expect flowers though...I should research that some more...

 

[Michael P]

I've missed this discussion until now. I. decidua is one of my favorite landscape species and I've always wanted to try one as bonsai. I don't know how old they need to be to flower, but I do know that in the landscape females need several years of establishment before they begin to fruit well. You can tell sex from flowers alone; the females have a conspicuous round green ovary at the base of the flower, while males have numerous stamens.

Following!

 

[LittleDingus]

I've missed this discussion until now. I. decidua is one of my favorite landscape species and I've always wanted to try one as bonsai. I don't know how old they need to be to flower, but I do know that in the landscape females need several years of establishment before they begin to fruit well. You can tell sex from flowers alone; the females have a conspicuous round green ovary at the base of the flower, while males have numerous stamens.

Following!

I've got a thread on verticillata as well. Also deciduous...very similar leaves. I picked them up as nursery cans when I was having trouble finding both sexes of decidua for sale. I eventually found the reforestation packs of decidua so now have both!

I would like to downsize the number of these I have...20 is too many! But I'm hoping a few remain permanent members of my collection...I just need to know I have a set that can set fruit

 

[LittleDingus]

Everybody is still healthy!



Some of the foliage is yellowing and dropping finally. It's starting to get easier to see some of the lower trunk structure.

A couple have gone all suckery and are still pretty spindly. Some are looking to be a little nicer form. Some time after all the leaves finally drop I'll take stock of what's what. I may have to separate them out into more space in the spring. Lucky for me by then we should be on a new property with a couple of acres...maybe a couple go in the ground for a few years. Once I know which are female and which are male I think I'll pull a couple for landscape trees

 

[LittleDingus]

Dead



Sorry for the blurry picture, but a dead tree is a dead tree.

We moved a zone colder over the winter...and a zone out of their native range I got these crossed with ilex verticillata which I also have in this challenge and which is native to my new zone and left them outside when we got super frigid temps for a week or two right after the move That was a mistake. I'm sure they couldn't handle cold that far below their normal winter temps...especially while in grow bags.

So check another sorry contestant from the field. I'd try them again except that they aren't worth special winter care to me and I do still have healthy verticillata which are also deciduous holly.

I will not be updating this thread further.