cbrshadow23
Shohin
I found this big red bougainvillea in someone's yard and dug it up. It's now growing vigorously in a pot and even flowering. My question has to do with chopping the tree since I think it's way too tall for bonsai currently. Whatever branches I cut off I can root and get more trees. For reference I'm in a warm part of the SF Bay Area and we don't get a real winter.
Just for fun, I'll start this post with some pictures of the plant before I dug it up, during the dig, and just after the dig.
I'll then post a video I took this morning and show the bougainvillea branches. I'm hoping to get advice on where to make cuts on this beast so that it's shorter and leaves room for it to be a true bonsai.
The Bougie as I found it.
Beautiful deep RED flowers!
Along with those beautiful flowers are thorns straight from hell. I've decided it's impossible to avoid getting cuts while digging out Bougainvillea, but they can be minimized with good long gloves and a thick sweatshirt. Weather didn't allow for the sweatshirt this time.
When digging up Bougainvilleas you can't really judge what the trunk will look like until you're halfway done removing it. In this case the owner told me there are (2) trunks that were each 3" diameter. I almost skipped digging it out because I was looking for a bigger specimen, but decided to do it since I don't have any red bougainvilleas and this one's flowers were quite striking. Here's how the plant looked from the surface:
After a couple hours of digging through hardened clay, FAR deeper than I was prepared to dig, I finally got under the plant. I was very happy to see such a big trunk and nice bark under the soil!
Success! The Bougainvillea is out of the ground! Notice there's not a big root ball. This isn't an issue for Bougainvillea.. Their roots come back very quickly.
I cut the branches a bit shorter for the car ride home. Once I got it home I put it in a pot that I had sitting around, along with 50/50 mix of sifted pumice and lava rock.
Next is a little trick that I learned from folks here on BonsaiNut. You water the plant and then wrap it in plastic to keep the humidity very high. This works REALLY well.
Within about 10 days I already had lots of new sprouts popping up. Notice in the background I made a larger humidity chamber (PVC and clear food wrap) for a bigger bougainvillea.
Once the new sprouts are about 8" long I slowly remove the bag (over the period of a few days to slowly let the plant get used to less humidity, then slowly introduce the plant to full sunlight.
So here's where the plant stands now. I'd like to chop a few branches back or completely off, I think. I just need it to be shorter. Where should I chop? I'd hate to chop too little and have to chop again in the future, but I'd also hate to chop too much and leave a giant scar.
Where would you chop, and what would you make the "front" of the tree?
Just for fun, I'll start this post with some pictures of the plant before I dug it up, during the dig, and just after the dig.
I'll then post a video I took this morning and show the bougainvillea branches. I'm hoping to get advice on where to make cuts on this beast so that it's shorter and leaves room for it to be a true bonsai.
The Bougie as I found it.
Beautiful deep RED flowers!
Along with those beautiful flowers are thorns straight from hell. I've decided it's impossible to avoid getting cuts while digging out Bougainvillea, but they can be minimized with good long gloves and a thick sweatshirt. Weather didn't allow for the sweatshirt this time.
When digging up Bougainvilleas you can't really judge what the trunk will look like until you're halfway done removing it. In this case the owner told me there are (2) trunks that were each 3" diameter. I almost skipped digging it out because I was looking for a bigger specimen, but decided to do it since I don't have any red bougainvilleas and this one's flowers were quite striking. Here's how the plant looked from the surface:
After a couple hours of digging through hardened clay, FAR deeper than I was prepared to dig, I finally got under the plant. I was very happy to see such a big trunk and nice bark under the soil!
Success! The Bougainvillea is out of the ground! Notice there's not a big root ball. This isn't an issue for Bougainvillea.. Their roots come back very quickly.
I cut the branches a bit shorter for the car ride home. Once I got it home I put it in a pot that I had sitting around, along with 50/50 mix of sifted pumice and lava rock.
Next is a little trick that I learned from folks here on BonsaiNut. You water the plant and then wrap it in plastic to keep the humidity very high. This works REALLY well.
Within about 10 days I already had lots of new sprouts popping up. Notice in the background I made a larger humidity chamber (PVC and clear food wrap) for a bigger bougainvillea.
Once the new sprouts are about 8" long I slowly remove the bag (over the period of a few days to slowly let the plant get used to less humidity, then slowly introduce the plant to full sunlight.
So here's where the plant stands now. I'd like to chop a few branches back or completely off, I think. I just need it to be shorter. Where should I chop? I'd hate to chop too little and have to chop again in the future, but I'd also hate to chop too much and leave a giant scar.
Where would you chop, and what would you make the "front" of the tree?
