Digging up a Blue Potato Bush (Lycianthes Rantonnetii)

[oddirt]

May I be the Devil's Advocate? If you transplant during the time of heavy water use and simultaneous drought, and supply all the water the critter needs and some ferts to boot, isn't that the equivalent of transplanting in a high growth period, and a good time?

I think that works well in more humid areas and with certain deciduous species like maples but our dry, hot climate is brutal. It’s not impossible but is likely to reduce the success significantly from my personal experience and others in this region (my local club sensei, bonsai nursery, and a former resident, Boon, have all told me to repot in fall/winter). I’ve killed plenty of trees trying to dig them up at the wrong time of year.

 

[oddirt]

Hey Tri, same guy!
I still need to check out the Yamato Bonsai Club. Fingers crossed that their show in October happens this year.

Lol, hey Ryan! Sorry I didn’t recognize your handle. Doh!

 

[cbrshadow23]

A little update: The tree is absolutely exploding with growth. If I plan on waiting a couple months before digging it up should I start to shape/trim it? If I let it go too long it's going to need another "Hard cut" as it will be way too tall. Some of this growth (after only 6 weeks!) is already 36" long!
Ignore the pumice at the base of the plant. I had some extra pumice fines that I threw on the exposed roots rather than putting the big gravel pieces back on the roots.

 

[oddirt]

A little update: The tree is absolutely exploding with growth. If I plan on waiting a couple months before digging it up should I start to shape/trim it? If I let it go too long it's going to need another "Hard cut" as it will be way too tall. Some of this growth (after only 6 weeks!) is already 36" long!
Ignore the pumice at the base of the plant. I had some extra pumice fines that I threw on the exposed roots rather than putting the big gravel pieces back on the roots.
View attachment 306616

You could do some styling in the ground but I wouldn’t chop or prune too much. The growth that happens now especially near the previous cut sites will help close the wounds.

 

[Forsoothe!]

Right now you have an opportunity to chose the twigs that will become the main architecture and sacrifice branches. These have specific locations that are good for you and the sooner you choose them and eliminate other interfering branches, the bettrer. You don't need sacrifice branches to fatten the trunk, but need to aim/wire the main branches and want them to be anchored well without a lot of scars from branches originating too close to their bases. Constantly tip pruning can keep the mains bifurcating instead of growing long. You want them fat close to the trunk. Eliminating those whips that aren't going to be needed ASAP will help those that you like divert all the growth into only where you want it. It will be a daily effort to snip buds, but well worth it.

 

[cbrshadow23]

Well my friend who owns the property that this tree is on told me I had 2 days to dig up the tree because his builder is coming this weekend and the tree can't be there. So much for waiting! It's less than ideal, but I can't complain since it's free. My wife on the other hand can complain that I brought home yet another big tree hahaha. If you follow my other threads on this site you'll see I've been digging up and bringing home lots of big trees lately.

Anyways, I went early to do the dig and really took my time on this one. I could rush it and rip it out quickly, but I've never seen an example of this species with such a nice thick trunk. It took about 5 hours for me to get it out of the ground. This tree made digging up Bougainvillea seem easy. Bougainvillea usually don't have much as far as fine roots, and only a few big taproots that can be chopped. This tree had both thick and thin roots a few feet in every direction. The soil was a mixture of top soil, clay, and lots of heavy gravel. I was able to dig out a big root ball so that hopefully it survives. This made it heavy. REALLY heavy. I'll guess 125 lbs for the tree+rootball !

So planned on putting the tree into a big pond liner from Lowes, but the pond liner was just a bit too small. I could have cut back the roots further but decided to just use a bigger tray. I used a big 'concrete mixing tray' from Home Depot. It works well but is huge and flimsy. That means it takes a ton of soil (I uesd pumice/lava and mixed in about 15% succulent soil since I ran out of pumice).

Notice that the tree has been trimmed a bit and there are some random wires on some of the branches. That's from my friend whose property this tree was on. He was "experimenting" lol. Again, I can't complain one bit, since this tree was free. In the end he was happy to not have to dig out a stump, and I'm super appreciative for the free tree.

Here are some photos. I got the tree into its new pot (tray) about an hour ago. I have it positioned in a place that gets a couple hours of morning sun, similar to what it got before it was dug up. Fingers crossed that it lives!













So that's where I'm at for now. I'll water it and pick up some more pumice tomorrow. For now I'm worn out.

 

[Mikecheck123]

Omg is that the 26" pond liner? I have several of those. That thing is a monster!

Well done on the dig! The potato bushes I have are extremely drought tolerant, but maybe that's from their exploring roots. Best of luck!

 

[cbrshadow23]

Omg is that the 26" pond liner? I have several of those. That thing is a monster!

Well done on the dig! The potato bushes I have are extremely drought tolerant, but maybe that's from their exploring roots. Best of luck!

Yep that's the 26" pond liner from Lowes and was just too small. Those 26" PL's are actually 26" overall, but the clear opening is more like 22". I was hoping to bend down some of those long roots but finally decided it would be best to throw it in a giant plastic tray and hopefully it recovers. Maybe I can pull in the roots in a year or so. It would be nice to squeeze this thing into an actual pot.
Thanks!

 

[cbrshadow23]

Well it's been a couple months so I thought I'd post an update. The tree is doing very well in its tray and is growing like crazy. I can also see lots of white feeder roots all over the place if I scrape the soil at all, so that's a good sign. The branches grow at a rate of about 1" per day, or slightly more than that.
The tree seems to like to be watered a fair amount. I was watering it every 3-4 days and noticed that it stopped growing. I decided to give it a heavy watering and it exploded with growth - now I give it a heavy watering every 2 days or so.

Yesterday I noticed the tree is pushing out some flowers! They're very small purple flowers with a bright yellow center. Below is a video for anyone interested (Excuse the gloomy/yellowness - smoke is blowing through our area due to the California wildfires). You can't see the roots flaring out because they're covered in pumice, but they're under there. I'm sure I'll expose them when I get this tree into a proper bonsai pot in early summer next year.

Next steps are to just wire new growth and branch development!

 

[Michael P]

Looking very good!

 

[cbrshadow23]

It's been a few months so I thought I'd post an update, along with some questions about styling.

The tree has been growing like crazy. I typically remove the flowers so that the tree sends all of its energy to growth, but it does flower quite a bit! I think the final design will be covered in those beautiful purple flowers. I keep wiring branches for movement, thinning out bad branches, shortening good branches to encourage ramification, etc. This tree has a long way to go, but it's a lot of fun and I think it has good potential. Those nice roots that I posted at the beginning of this thread are still there, just hidden under pumice/lava rock for now. When I repot the tree in the late spring I'll expose those roots.

Here's a picture of the canopy just this morning. It needs a trim again, but the branches are getting really full, lots of ramification, and whenever I thin it out a bit I get lots of new growth from the trunk.

Question: How should I shape the canopy? How large should that canopy be if I want it to scale well with the trunk? Since I believe it will be easy to shape this tree, I'd like the 'finished' canopy to not just be circular. I was thinking about maybe keeping the top growth somewhat tight, but allowing the side branches to extend pretty far outward to give it a shorter/wider canopy. Thoughts? What would you do with it if it were your tree?




Here's a picture of the pot I plan on using in the late spring. It's a large mica bonsai pot from Wigert's Bonsai Nursery in Florida. It's hard to tell scale, but the mica pot is significantly smaller than the black tray that the tree is in right now. It's a huge pot, but I didn't want to do an extreme root reduction for the first repot.




Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated!

 

[Michael P]

In the last photo, the trunk suggests movement to the left. What about an asymmetrical canopy that follows the same direction? I can't see the major branches, but you might be able to do the reverse, and have the canopy move opposite the direction of the trunk.

 

[Crazy Diamond]

AnY UpDaTe?

 

[cbrshadow23]

AnY UpDaTe?

Yep! I created a new post for the whole project. Here's a link to that post with more current photos.

Big Blue Potato Bush Project - Styling

I posted about this tree a while back when I was considering digging it out of a yard, but the thread got long so I thought I'd put up a new post now that the tree has been dug up and has progressed. I had a friend that was clearing an area of his yard and this tree was going to be scrapped, so...

www.bonsainut.com

The photos in that post are from the end of summer. The tree has lots of new green growth since then, but less flowers. We have our rainy and "cold" season here in California right now.