[Dingus] Romantic cherry tree progression...hopefully...

LittleDingus

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These trees were destined for the ground after a move planned in 2-3 years. Every house we've lived in I've planted cherry trees so was trying to get a head start ;) I usually plant the standards but the local nursery had these and, after some research, thought I'd give them a try! They were not bought for bonsai and are not currently in anything remotely like a decent bonsai soil.

I currently have 2 prunus x kerrasis 'Romeo' and 2 prunus x kerrasis 'Juliet'. So cute, right? Gag!

However, as they've grown, I've become enamoured with the bark! I've decided to run with the cuteness and take one 'Romeo' and one 'Juliet' and attempt to make a proper bonsai couple out of them :) I do have personal reasons other than the obvious trope. If it were just for the gimick, I'd leave them in the ground!

I know a little about cherry and the big leaves and lack of reduction, etc... I have a montmorency, a couple of sweet cherry, a yoshino and 4 of these guys all in basically the exact same conditions. The yoshino is destined for bonsai, the rest are destined for desert! The montmorency has 6" leaves, the yoshio 2". The kerrasis avarage about 3"...so closer to yoshino size. I have no experience what-so-ever on if they will reduce at all. But I figure if they reduce even a little bit, it will be acceptable for my enjoyment :)

So, here's where I'm at. These all will stay in grow bags until after our next move. I should have at least two full growing seasons before I'd be ready to pot the lucky couple and start development. It can be longer if they need it. I have no problem with gathering extra cherries in the mean time even if it slows bonsai development down :)

Where I'd like to be is trees somewhere in the 12" - 30" range. That's a big range. Where they end up doesn't matter much to me...the trees can dictate the overall size and style for the most part. They both do need to be comparable sizes. Not shohin one imperial another. I do intend to fruit them even as bonsai but I don't care how heavy the crop is. Probably something sparse, actually. I'd love dense flowering, but I can otherwise prune fruit to just enough to look like a fruit tree.

What I'm asking for is advice/suggestions from the collective on which two trees I should focus on and what I should be focusing on to get from here to in a bonsai pot for the first time. They will get pruned this winter and very likely a repot in early spring. If there are obvious branches that should be removed so healing can start, I may as well prune those now. If they just need to sit and thicken up, I can do that too. Is there anything I should be doing to fix nebari? Should I be potting into wider, but shallower bags to start training the roots? Any sort of pre-styling I should be working on? I have some ideas but I'd love to hear other's thoughts before I embarrass myself ;)

I will only be picking one of each gender to treat as a pre-bonsai. The others I will prune as I normally would for fruit production. I'd prefer the pre-bonsai bear fruit in the mean time as well. It softens the wait ;) But I am willing to sacrifice fruit production for a better start at what I'm hoping is eventual bonsai training.

I can only attach 10 files and I was going to attach a 'front', a 'back' and a full tree so I'll be breaking the pictures up over 2 posts.

First the ladies:

Juliet #1

j1_full.jpgJ1_front.jpgj1_back.jpg

Juliet #2

j2_full.jpgj2_front.jpgj2_back.jpg
 

LittleDingus

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And the gents:

Romeo #1

r1_full.jpgr1_front.jpgr1_back.jpg

Romeo #2

r2_full.jpgr2_front.jpgr2_back.jpg

Any thoughts, advice, suggestions, musing on what you would do if you were as dorky as me, etc...let's hear them!

Thanks!!!
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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Nice, as far as I can tell, x kerrasis is a hybrid made to create a late season cherry crop, in order to escape bird predation. The belief is that birds aggressively eat red fruit early in the summer, and late summer and early autumn will avoid red fruit. By complex hybridizing, they got a fruit that resembles a sour cherry, but ripens late in the summer. I'm not certain of the details, but I believe one of the parents would be called a plum by most. But they were selected and bred to resemble the cherry parent. There is no "bright line" between any of the Prunus species, so whether its a cherry or a plum is not a real botanical issue. For agriculture, shape, color and flavor is about all that counts.

If you are shooting for bonsai over 8 inches tall, you will want a trunk diameter over 2 inches diameter. Better would be to get trunks closer to 4 inches diameter. So for now, I would just let these grow. Cutting back now would lengthen the time it will take to make "fat trunks".
 

LittleDingus

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Nice, as far as I can tell, x kerrasis is a hybrid made to create a late season cherry crop, in order to escape bird predation. The belief is that birds aggressively eat red fruit early in the summer, and late summer and early autumn will avoid red fruit. By complex hybridizing, they got a fruit that resembles a sour cherry, but ripens late in the summer. I'm not certain of the details, but I believe one of the parents would be called a plum by most. But they were selected and bred to resemble the cherry parent. There is no "bright line" between any of the Prunus species, so whether its a cherry or a plum is not a real botanical issue. For agriculture, shape, color and flavor is about all that counts.

If you are shooting for bonsai over 8 inches tall, you will want a trunk diameter over 2 inches diameter. Better would be to get trunks closer to 4 inches diameter. So for now, I would just let these grow. Cutting back now would lengthen the time it will take to make "fat trunks".

Hmmm, I haven't seen anything about them being developed for a late season crop. I got about a dozen cherries for the very first time this season. They were ripe about the same time as my established montmorency. Of course, the first season or three tend to be a little random in my experience so we'll see if that changes as they grow up.

I may have to rethink this a few years down the line...I'm not sure these will ever get a 4" trunk! They are a bush form that should only get 6'-8' tall.

In the mean time, I thought if there was something I could be doing to increase the odds of a passable bonsai, I'd do it. I find the advice from this site very conflicting at times! Should I wire that pencil thin trunk for movement now? Or should I just let it grow because it's going to be trunk chopped later anyway? There's got to be some middle ground somewhere!
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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Pruning now, will slow the rate the trunk thickens, but can avoid having to heal overly large scars. You can prune for shape, you can wire for shape. Anything that decreased the total leaf surface area slows the increase in diameter of the trunk.

So better bonsai shape, but more time to increase trunk diameter? Or rapidly get to desired trunk diameter, and then have to spend time fixing scars, wounds and do drastic pruning to develop shape? Your choice. Speed to fat trunk, or work on shape and wait much longer for fat trunk.
 

Fishsauce

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Any updates on your romance cherries? I just got a few for ground planting but may propagate some down the road if they're suitable for bonsai.
 

LittleDingus

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Any updates on your romance cherries? I just got a few for ground planting but may propagate some down the road if they're suitable for bonsai.

Hi @Fishsauce, sorry I missed this! I recently moved and have been too busy to pay much attention to B-Nut :( I'm currently going through some of my threads to update progress and saw your post.

We've got a little acreage at the new house and I'm turning the backyard into a food forest. 2 of these went into the ground in the spring to flank the gateway into the garden. They won't be bonsai any time soon ;)

The other two are still in 7 gallon grow bags. I have a set of his-n-her pots intended for them (mine are Romeo and Juliet varieties), but I haven't decided when they will move into them, yet. They bloomed profusely this past spring, but didn't set more than a few cherries...still a little young yet. I'm thinking I might let them try to set fruit here in 2023 since my other cherry trees are still too young to fruit and I love cherry pie ;) But then my plan is to hack them back and start developing some initial structure while still in the grow bags. They shouldn't need repotting again until 2024 so that would be the earliest they'd go into pots. Since I now have a large yard, I have less pressure to shrink my trees into pots to save space so they might just develop them in the grow bags for a few more years yet.

tl;dr: I haven't done any work to push these towards bonsai yet other than let them grow, let them grow, let them grow!
 

Fishsauce

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Very cool. Coincidentally, I'm also planning for a food/fruit forest with my tiny yard too, just ordered 8 fruit trees online to add my existing persimmon & fig plants. Interest in bonsai & gardening seems to go hand :)
Hopefully I can parlay my "orchard" into growing some pre-bonsai in-ground too in the future.
 
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