Are you a bouger?

Carol 83

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Mine are suffering a little, asmy climate is not ideal for them. Just brought this one inside for winter, after a great summer flower display:

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That's a beauty. Most of mine were blooming, when I brought them in. A couple days later, my floor was covered with bracts. :(
 

TooCoys

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I wouldn't think the temperature change would cause that. Mine saw some low 50's and were fine. More likely overwatered.

This is what they look like. My two $1.00 treasures lost their leaves. My new Sandiego Red is turning yellow. But my 2gal is fine.

91530D59-2900-4264-8168-DD2D862AAB6C.jpegC887974E-38D9-42FD-B51D-957E9ABEBCC3.jpeg75916EB3-57C5-4F12-B1DF-855627EB2EBA.jpeg046F0D5C-56CF-45CF-A83A-7F265CAF3999.jpeg
 

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Carol 83

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SU2

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Anyone care to explain this post.
Unsure if you mean context or the post itself, she's saying
"If you're trying to get quick results try using a higher ratio time release fertilizer. Low ratio organic fertilizers are typically suggested for older more refined trees, especially Juniper and Pines as they don't backbud as fruitfully when compared to tropical species."
which IMO is a kind of juvenile approach to fertilizer "knowledge" (I say that for myriad reasons but most specifically it's because they're making synthetic/natural fert distinctions w/o even have touched on the far more practical/important aspect of pH in the 'fert zone' to even get absorbed properly) They're saying this to someone who's trying to do something quasi contradictory IE they want to grow a specimen but they don't have it in a growing-box (they want to develop a tree while keeping it in a showy container, something bougies just don't do, while I understand this is generally the case for all plants I know that for bougies it's "roots=shoots" all day long and that the container size is almost linearly correlated to the canopy size & growth-speed)

Y'all are just playing with bougainvilleas... this place means business! WOW!

That's a 45 gallon stump which you can purchase! http://bougainvilleas.us/

45-Gl-Stump-11.jpg
WOW I would love to have that guy to play with!!!! I can scoop large-trunked bougies easily-enough but they're almost always the same generic cultivars and that ^ thing's leafing is so dense it has to be some kind of hybrid, actually makes me re-think how great a piece of stock that actually may be because, with something like that where you're going to need to grow seriously fat primary branches, you need fast growth....and all bougie hybrids I've seen (only a couple, to be fair) grew like snails, heck I have a "dense leaf" one (maybe same cultivar as this!) and a variegated one, they're easily two of my slowest bonsai (their growth on par with my Jades, basically!) so that thing may need a decade before it's even a half decent pre-bonsai! And I've gotta disagree with you, in looking around their site and its (lack) of quality, they don't mean business! Wigerts means business ;D (am just being half sarcastic I hope it comes out properly in text ;P )
 

SU2

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20181216_164444.jpg
[re all the McGuyver'd nonsense....I know, I know!! Oh and my wind-block hedge has been finished for a while, it's getting close to 1.5yrs from when I started that hedge with ~20 small Mexican Sunflower cuttings, probably the fastest hedging I've ever grown! Prog.album *here* :) ]


The ones I don't defoliate either die or have severe dieback and limp along for the rest of the season.
Also, you may cut back hard but two things, 1) leave at least one active leaf node on the branches you want to keep. 2) SEAL the cuts! Ignore these things at your own risk.

I never sealed bougie wounds and mostly it's been of no consequence, I think it's really only a factor when you're talking massive areas of exposed sap-/heart-wood (and fwiw I've never seen stress in trees that I just carved-into their heartwood and then immediately applied lime sulfur) If you have a larger area that's not going to get rolled-over in a season or so then it certainly needs sealing, but for removing / cutting branches as thin as what you pictured I've never had issue w/ not sealing (and to be clear for the larger areas that I use LS on, that's all they're getting, I've yet to find what I should be using for 'sealing', or even resolving the "can sealing cause the problems you're aiming to prevent?" paradox)

Fully agree on the defoliation, I've tried many transplants both ways and bougies are especially happy to get leaf reductions when being re-potted - although many have the mindset that you defoliate & don't prune (ie to retain the IBA/hormones in your growing-tips so that the transplant roots quicker), though I've found that either method of leaf/canopy reduction works fine, it's just about not leaving far more foliage-mass than the roots can support :)

Hope the bougers are doing well now!!! Mine are almost all in-flower right now, a couple months ago I tried Wigert's approach of defoliation (I also did some pruning, never found an answer on whether cutting tips was / wasn't part of his approach) wherein you defoliate 2mo prior to desired flower-time and it worked quite well I mean 9/10 of my bougies are in-flower and there's a strong homogeneity of how far along in flowering they are (flowering phases last >1mo on bougies, though anyone in this thread probably knows that ;D ), in addition to the defoliations&prunings 2mo ago I also started upping phosphorous slowly/gradually around that time, then ~1mo ago I started reducing nitro a bit, am now using a balanced approach (equal npk basically, close-enough at least! Unsure if there's any actual "signals" to the plant due to ratios of NPK or, as I'm inclined to believe, if they only respond to total quantities of each appropriately) which I'll continue to pump at very high levels til the growth ends - THIS IS WHERE I'M CALLING IN YOU *BOUGERS* FOR HELP/THOUGHTS- Do you have any thoughts to share on the *growth* associated with flowering? I aim to keep my bougies in vegetative growth all through the growing-season (even actively pinch-off flowers as they occur), however I'd always considered flowering-phases to be a net-loss and now I'm not so sure because, well, 'flowering' is really growth!!! So far as I know, it's not photosynthetic growth, and it is going to fall-off so it is wasted-nutes in that sense, however the 'flowers' are legitimately large, fast-paced growth that's coming through the cambium (as what people call 'flowers' on a bougie are 90% leaf, or modified leaf bracts) so while that growth is ultimately 'wasted' in that it doesn't photosynthesize & falls-off, the thing is that it is growth (I got some nasty wire-bite on trees these past 2mo, trees that had basically zero vegetative growth, so I know that heavy flowering is happening in the presence of increased cambial flow)

So yeah I'd love to hear thoughts on that ^ from a growing/developing perspective, I mean in the middle of summer I'd still push them towards vegetative growth as it's obviously superior to flowering-bract-growth (when it comes to developing a specimen), but for times like now - Dec., the beginning of 'real' winter here - when vegetative growth wasn't going to happen, it seems that it's beneficial to the specimens' growth rates to push a heavy flowering instead of thwarting it!!

On that note I'm going to attach a cool panorama shot I took yesterday of most-of my garden flowering, will post at beginning of this post, had actually come to check this thread out for new replies & to post some of the pics I've gotten in the past couple weeks, have so much color in my garden right now! But wanted to (and will this afternoon) make a post in this thread about "ume style" which is what I think a lot of my approach is starting to reflect and want to discuss that (I don't see much on Ume styling but am in love w/ it and feel like bougies are perfectly adaptable to 'standard Ume styling'...wish I could even remember what country Ume styling like I like is from, I just have websites & photos and nothing is english lol)
 

Carol 83

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Nice picture, all those blooming bougies. You FL guys have all the fun...:(
 
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SU2

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So, Ume styling....I just googled some english-language pages on what I was referring to:

http://www.phutu.com/ume-in-japan/ (the pics in here, that's what got me going on Ume-style for bougies!)

https://bonsaitonight.com/2017/03/10/making-big-cut-ume-bonsai/

Wikipedia's entry for Ume or "Prunus Mume"

https://peterteabonsai.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/japanese-flowering-plum-basics/

And for context, for bougies I'm referring to collected/mature stock only, and for Umes I'm referring to the "traditional" (maybe "current"?) style I see the nicest ones trending towards:
aume6.jpg
^a beautiful contrast of delicate&vibrant flowers on a rough, aged trunk- so beautiful!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​
Sooo, early this year I saw pictures of how people style (some)Umes and fell in love, examples like the Ume (Umes?) from the first link in this post, anyways it's an Asian specie and I'm here in FL....where bougies are abundant....so I couldn't help but want an Ume-styled bougie, however I found that as this growing-season progressed I was styling more and more into "ume style" so I've wanted to bring the topic up to you guys for **any&all** input/thoughts/suggestions/criticism/etc as I'm still becoming more drawn to styling many of my bougies "like Umes"!
Now, this wouldn't/doesn't work with all bougies, but if you read the last url I linked in this ^ post, you'll see how craggy&beautiful the Ume bark is - they also discuss how susceptible it is to rot and heavy die-back (just like bougies) So when I say it doesn't necessarily work well w/ all bougies, what I'm saying is it seems much more applicable to collected bougie w/ mature bark (I think it's a bark issue primarily and size issue secondarily, you can work-around size with careful styling & creative potting/positioning/forced perspectives/etc but the rough bark seems almost requisite for a good look here, it's the juxtaposition of craggy bark & deadwood against the flowers that make 'that look', no?) So, flowers- the Ume just blooms once a year but, while the flowers aren't that similar upon close inspection, they do have tons of similarities when viewing an entire canopy of them, the Ume flowers are a bit smaller but not by much (and flower size, as well as flower-to-tree size, are obviously never set in stone for any specimen) and while they're only out once a year they last ~a month (similar to a bougie, though bougies are closer to 2mo often enough!)

What I'd consider "proper" Bougainvillea styling, IE actually developing branches that have taper/hierarchy, is something I've had trouble putting my finger on, sometimes I'll see beautiful specimen where they're developing branches like, yknow, like it's an actual tree:
this guy, despite the weird trunk base: aRND.png Even this guy when in flower almost "looks like a tree could look like": aEWB.png ,

, however so often I see large bougie stock treated/developed in a manner where it's like the artist is simply trying to see how many nodes they can get within a 4-6" perimeter around the stump,
stuff like this aWB.png or this aGP.png , however those are by e.wigert & g.potter respectively so they're about as perfect a picture of "that style" as you can get, what I see so much of with 'developed bougies' is some half-way mix between going for a proper branching structure, and going for something that's only going to look good when in-flower. These two examples are the best I could find with a quick search, but I find most develop their bougies' styles in a manner somewhere in-between these two styles.

Anyways the beauty of the Ume(s) I'd seen had me wanting to use that approach if & when a bougie wouldn't conform to something else- it's almost a last-ditch styling effort/effect, in that it's something that could be one on material where you just look at it think "there is no way that could be made into a bonsai"! But, done well, I think it's incredible, the only thing is that the Ume 'styling movement' is really emphasizing its "only good when in-flower" approach, building large branching networks that look like tangled (but oddly attractive in a sense) messes when not in-flower, and being just a spectacular color-show when in-flower.

To that end & as mentioned I've started styling some material that way, while I've got a lot more that were heavily influenced by the Ume styling I'm selecting these specimen to share because they're the most "what could you possibly do with that?" specimen that I've styled (begun styling!) this way, these two were actually from the same ~15" wide block I collected a couple yrs ago and, after some time, had to separate into 4 or 5 individual specimen:
this one ("cobra bougie", lol ;D ) is certainly not going to look "like a real tree" in my lifetime: 20181217_142216.jpg, and this one wouldn't go far in any traditional style either: 20181217_141551.jpg (although I should mention that, for this latter one, all the foliage should be to the left and the trunk probably tilted a bit more leftward, it's simply potted how it is because that's where I stuck it when worrying about 'cobra' when splitting that 15" bougie-stump up and I simply haven't re-potted or wired it yet except a screw into the top/chop-area so I could anchor one of the two primaries to the left, the other was already going that way but one wasn't and needed guiding quick as it was getting too thick)

Those are a couple of many I have that are like that, but hopefully they illustrate the style intended, especially when compared to stuff more like this bougie, where I'm aiming to style it "natural" so that even when fully defoliated it's beautiful just bare-branched: 20181217_141240.jpg , or when compared to my attempts at "lots of nodes close to a stump": 20181217_141311.jpg or even my first real attempt at W.Pall's description of a Fairy Tale style approach: 20181217_141403.jpg (this is Cerberus, photo doesn't show that those 3 fat limbs are half shari/deadwood, good pics in my imgur prog.album of its initial styling after grow-out, and to see the silly, root-less stump that I initially brought home here's the summer grow-out prog.album) Would love to hear @Walter Pall 's thoughts on Ume style if he cares to share, I know those aren't his bag and that he's far more into naturalistic styling but I've never heard someone describe styling-in-general so understandably as him!!


So, thoughts on the bougie's suitability for ume-styling would be greatly appreciated, thanks in-advance for any thoughts (pos or negative!) on this one, am sick of being "in limbo" having material that will never take to naturalistic style and not knowing what to do with it, I think the ume approach is a fantastic choice in many such circumstances!
 

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[ninja-edit: Meant to ask you bougers- have you ever heard of dying bark? I thought it was very unusual that gluing on deadwood was considered OK, and while I've never heard of dying bark, well, I'm 99.9% sure this tree here had its bark dyed, in fact I can find other photos of it where the bark isn't nearly as tan, they must've dyed it to boost the contrast with the LS'd deadwood]

Actually this may be one of the 'best' examples ever of the "only meant to look good when in-flower" styles for a bougie, the type of style I showed g.potter & e.wigert having done far better in the last post:
20160402_151722__11849.1459799531.1280.1280.jpg

w/o blooms, that thing looks ridiculous of course- doing this style and doing it well seems to require whatever special sauce is fueling g.potter/e.wigert's creations of this type (where you just know it won't look good defoliated/bare), am guessing it has something to do w/ not allowing that many primaries from such a small area lol!!
 

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I wish EDIT wasn't time-sensitive here...just found a bougie done by W.Pall that is a fantastic job of the "lots-of-nodes very close-to-trunk" while still going for (pretty much attained) proper branch-structure:
AWP.png (rear:) AWPP.png


As Pall says on the short page of his I found this on, "Most folks have bougies just for the flowers. And too many are not good as bonsai really. This one is almost better in winter, I think", and I agree w/ his sentiment, with this specimen - if taken only from the front-view - is a cool balance between the two 'extremes' I'd mentioned (true Naturalistic style, and "as many nodes as close to the trunk as possible, w/o consideration of branch-structure"), though the skill needed for this is obviously world-class lol as only Pall could turn that stump into what you see here (just look at the pic of it from the rear, that was an ugly lil stump at one point!!

@Walter Pall I would LOVE to know what you're preserving that deadwood with, and as always thanks a million for your contributions to the art!!!!!
 

Walter Pall

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I am not really preserving the deadwood much. the deadwood on broadleaved trees only stay for a certain number of years. Whatever you do to preserve it will not help at one point. So I just enjoy it as long as it is three and then there will be a hole. After that I enjoy the hole.

This bougie is not in my possession any more. Overwintering in my climate was too much of a burden and since a few years it has a new home.
 

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As always, thanks a ton for the reply, still blows my mind to get direct-replies from someone who, so far as I can see, is one of the world-wide greats in this art!!!! Kudos a million times for giving-back to the community Mr. Pall!!!!! :)

I am not really preserving the deadwood much. the deadwood on broadleaved trees only stay for a certain number of years. Whatever you do to preserve it will not help at one point. So I just enjoy it as long as it is three and then there will be a hole. After that I enjoy the hole.

This bougie is not in my possession any more. Overwintering in my climate was too much of a burden and since a few years it has a new home.

Fair enough, however you're certainly preserving it to some degree right- what do you use? I've gyrated between burnishing and lime-sulfur with additives for coloration, am starting to think a combination of the two is optimal for convincing deadwood on deciduous broadleafs, however I've gotta say I didn't think it was as bad as you described wherein you seem to be saying **alllll** is lost, is that really the case? Deadwood on deciduous broadleaf is automatically not going to be there in 5yrs? I guess I was under the impression that, with a proper preservation approach, you kinda could get real long-term results (I guess I saw it as "Sure, it deteriorates faster than deadwood on conifers, but with proper care you can extend it for quite a while", this thinking further validated by seeing some older specimen of this type that most certainly still had significant preserved deadwood-mass.

Would be very, very eager to hear any preservation techs (or just products) you use besides lime-sulfur & burnishing, I really want to learn wood-preservation/hardening products (there's stuff that seems to fully preserve wood, penetrating every.last.fiber with an epoxy-type product that'll cure to a rubberized/protected, fully-permeated & sealed barrier for the deadwood), have to imagine that if it's not being done properly now that it's not an inherent impossibility but rather that the proper products and maybe techniques just aren't fully realized & wide-spread yet (you can preserve organic creature in taxidermy, I just cannot fathom that preserving deadwood is impossible just that we haven't found the "go-to"/optimal yet!)

While I've got your ear I've just gotta ask you- if people graft deadwood onto their conifers, how much of a faux pas is it for me to graft bougainvillea thorns onto bougainvilleas? I've got a bucket of thorns from large in-ground specimen, I use my concave cutters to cut a thorn, then cut the same-sized hole into the side of a trunk, then glue the thorn in-place and wrap it with gardeners' tape, the idea being that in a growing-season the bark will grow-over/roll-over the edges of the thorn and eventually incorporate it, letting me remove the tape by the end of the year and finding the protruding thorn is now part of the trunking! Eager to hear your thoughts on the aesthetic-acceptance of such a thing, as well as any possible practical problems to doing this that I may be missing!

As always thanks for everything, you're a hero to me in this area and I hope your garden, and life, are going great so far this year!!!!

(btw do you have any publishing channels or anything I can watch for? I've just been going-over your older articles & youtubes, lots of hte Sandev ones - my respect for the Sandev kid/guy is massive, if I were in Croatia I'd be looking to meet-up with him - but if there's anything else I could look for it'd be massively appreciated, was just thinking about paywalls the other day and realized you're one of the only people I'd actually pay to see their info!!!!)
 

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This bougie is not in my possession any more. Overwintering in my climate was too much of a burden and since a few years it has a new home.
Oh!!! FWIW, I know int'l shipping is $$$ and sadly I can't help there, however most of my garden is bougainvillea so if you ever decide to try it again, if you covered S&H I'd very very happily gift you a tree to see where you take it (hell, even if you kept it hidden I'd be happy to give something back for all I've gotten from you!), so yeah if you are on the fence never hesitate to as I'd send you current pics of material and you could choose whatever :) I know you're thinking "but I said it was too-much of a burden, dumbass!", but in the past years the LED grow-light technology has gotten so insanely great that if you went to a hydroponics/indoor-gardening store you could get an awesome setup quite cheaply, I think the marijuana-industry's innovation on LED grow-lights will make indoor bonsai-displays a practical reality in no time (actually I believe it's already there, just not widely-adopted yet, but the tech is there for simple/cheap/effective indoor cultivation!)
 

milehigh_7

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01/01/2020 and still blooming! The leaves are looking mighty sad and could drop at any time. I let it grow out a little at the end of the season to strengthen a bit so it overall looks ragged right now. I am going to repot it this summer and see what's going on below the soil and hopefully remove some of the remaining large roots.
 

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