Are succulents immune to structural flaws?

[Punky]

Crassula and Portulacaria seem to be immune to swelling cause by bar branches. Should I not worry so much about eliminating multiple branches from the same node? Am I wrong, and swelling really is a potential problem?

 

[Forsoothe!]

Even if trees with whorled branches didn't have the physical problems of fattening at bars & cartwheels, they would still have branches in the wrong places. Too many radiating from some given height means a concurrent blank space above and/or below which detracts from a good, balanced design. The sooner it is addressed with growing branches in the right place, the better. Yes, you can direct one upwards and the other downwards, but then you have an enigma of two branches subject to growing under the same circumstances growing in different manners. I don't own a tree with perfect branching. This, in spite of trying for the perfect design, every time.

 

[Punky]

I’ll try to get a picture tomorrow, but the situation that prompted this question has to do with a Jade I found in a green waste pile that has responded well to my recovery care. There is a fat trunk with a large primary branch that needs to be balanced with foliage on the opposite side. The next lowest and next higher nodes are both too far away to really accomplish that goal. There is a shoot coming out opposite the large branch that I find appealing as a small asymmetrical counterbalance to the large branch. I am trying to determine if I can allow this to be a part of my long-term plan for the plant.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

The "rule" against bar branches is not a rule at all. As a general principal of aesthetics, bar branches tend to stop the eye as it moves up the tree. If for what ever reason a bar branch "looks attractive" there is no reason to eliminate it. Focus on the "rules" of bonsai design obscures the fact that "There are no Rules", as in Art is in the Eye of the Beholder. The Japanese design aesthetic for the design of bonsai is a fairly complete, and well documented aesthetic. But there is no rule that any tree has to follow the "Japanese Design Aesthetic". We use it because it is convenient and well documented. You can read the principals, and follow a formula and it will turn out a bonsai that is passable. But any aesthetic can be used. And even Japan based masters occasionally keep bar branches if they are the best solution to a design problem.

But in general, if you don't know what to do, bar branches are a "no-no". But if removing the bar branch makes the tree less attractive, then don't remove it. Keep the bar branch. The rule is to make an attractive tree.

 

[Punky]

I regret using “structural flaw” in the title as I was thinking of a particular kind of structural flaw: inverse taper.

Will Jade develop inverse taper? Or does the succulent characteristic prevent that from occurring? If it helps, I have no intention to leave whorls, only the occasional opposite pair.

 

[MrWunderful]

Are you referring to crassula Specifically? Or portulacaria afra “dwarf jade” Because I have seen more inverse taper in true crassula than portys. I find neither suffers as bad as deciduous/coniferous trees though

 

[Punky]

I have both. That answer is what I needed. Inverse taper happens, even though it is less than other plants. Thanks. I think I might plan on removing the second shoot before it becomes a significant branch.