Ginkgo Biloba

[Jerry Harder]

View attachment 156871 View attachment 156871

 

[Jerry Harder]

Note that the area above the tourniquet is swelling and there are the little protrusions that will soon be roots! I now know some signs that the plant is strugling and in in-process of making its new roots. It is also a good time to check on the process as the roots are not developed enough to be damaged by messing with them.

 

[KiwiPlantGuy]

Hi Jerry,
There is some pretty seri Ass ( serious) reading there which is heavy going but interesting. The co-relation between plant auxins seems obvious now and solidifies my thinking that the short nodes have got less auxin.
I admit to not reading all the articles but just skimming, and what interested me was that if you grow Ginkgo in a greenhouse ( e.g. No Winter and very warm average day temps) you may get a different result. What I am thinking is that temperature may play a stronger part than we think. I wonder what would happen if the trees were grown in sub-tropical conditions where you pinched out the long shoots only after 1-2 leafs growth. Would the rest of the season be forcing the tree to push a short node into a long node because the tree has no choice. Eg. Where you and I grow Ginkgo maybe too cold to get active growth for at least 9-10 months of heat etc.
Now that is theory #1 above.
Theory #2 is a long way more WHACKY ( left field). If the short buds are not getting enough auxin, then we buy IBA or a similar Auxin related chemical and SPRAY THE ACTIVE LEAVES in question. ( every short bud etc on tree). Eg. Force the tree to grow / activate the short buds.

Lol, I think I have used up my horticultural skills and theory in the 15 mins writing this. Bear in mind that neither of these actions are at all practical, but hey my 5 cents worth.

 

[KiwiPlantGuy]

Hmm, as for your air-layering.
I don't like the way the tree is sending out these stress signals. Is the tourniquet the preferred option? Have you twisted the wire nice and tight so the tree has no choice?
Yes I see the swelling too, but there could be a problem with your media as you think too. I have read elsewhere on Bnut the use of small pots and bonsai soil around the wound site ( bonsai soil or pure 100 % perlite). As I think your media could well be so wet the tree is telling you this by going droopy and pale etc.
Either the pot method or pure spagnum moss ( aerated and drained).

Not trying to belittle your efforts, as this stress signal maybe just it's way of coping with the tourniquet etc. Although my experiences say otherwise.

Look forward to your response, and sorry no idea re posting thumbnails.

 

[KiwiPlantGuy]

I am on a roll so here comes theory #3 for consideration on the short bud thing.
I have read that the Fagus genus has a genetic make up that simply put - will only produce a certain number of leaves in a season. And they are notorious at being poor at back budding. I wonder if Ginkgo have a similar desposition that they only produce ( eg 50 leaves), and that number goes slowly up for every year the tree grows.
I am hoping you can see where I am going here. Once the Ginkgo has grown its alotment of leaves for the season, growth stops and hence, no growth for year after year on a short bud etc.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

@Jerry Harder
Your enthusiasm is admirable. All this "theoretical book learnen" is great, But as much as I could bear to read, clearly none of the research was done by or for those whose long term plan is to grow ginkgos in containers, meaning as bonsai.

Did you read the thread posted by Brian van Fleet? Did you notice the horticultural techniques used? A link was provided in an earlier post. Ginkgo are common in bonsai collections in the USA. There are many threads on this forum, use the search function. I even posted mine in a "show us your ginkgo" thread a year or two ago. These threads are usually in the "Other Conifers", "Other Deciduous" or sometimes under "Fruiting" or "General". There's a lot of information buried here.

Not busting chops, but instead of dumping more data, pause and read more of what's here. Don't get me wrong, I saved PDFs of most of the articles you posted for future analysis. I appreciate your efforts.

Frankly, your pruning scheme seems like long term it won't be the benefit you're predicting.

 

[Jerry Harder]

Hmm, as for your air-layering.
I don't like the way the tree is sending out these stress signals. Is the tourniquet the preferred option? Have you twisted the wire nice and tight so the tree has no choice?
Yes I see the swelling too, but there could be a problem with your media as you think too. I have read elsewhere on Bnut the use of small pots and bonsai soil around the wound site ( bonsai soil or pure 100 % perlite). As I think your media could well be so wet the tree is telling you this by going droopy and pale etc.
Either the pot method or pure spagnum moss ( aerated and drained).

Not trying to belittle your efforts, as this stress signal maybe just it's way of coping with the tourniquet etc. Although my experiences say otherwise.

Look forward to your response, and sorry no idea re posting thumbnails.

I made the tourniquet barely tight enough to stay in place. It is the growth of the tree that is making it tight. Air layer media is spaghnum moss. The tree is planted in a rather large pot with the moisture control.

 

[Jerry Harder]

@Jerry Harder
Your enthusiasm is admirable. All this "theoretical book learnen" is great, But as much as I could bear to read, clearly none of the research was done by or for those whose long term plan is to grow ginkgos in containers, meaning as bonsai.

Did you read the thread posted by Brian van Fleet? Did you notice the horticultural techniques used? A link was provided in an earlier post. Ginkgo are common in bonsai collections in the USA. There are many threads on this forum, use the search function. I even posted mine in a "show us your ginkgo" thread a year or two ago. These threads are usually in the "Other Conifers", "Other Deciduous" or sometimes under "Fruiting" or "General". There's a lot of information buried here.

Not busting chops, but instead of dumping more data, pause and read more of what's here. Don't get me wrong, I saved PDFs of most of the articles you posted for future analysis. I appreciate your efforts.

Frankly, your pruning scheme seems like long term it won't be the benefit you're predicting.

Your point well taken. I am new to this group and still struggling on how to find stuff on it. (sometimes my own posts) So no, I haven't seen those other posts but intend to look for them. Thanks for the tips.

 

[Jerry Harder]

Hi Jerry,
There is some pretty seri Ass ( serious) reading there which is heavy going but interesting. The co-relation between plant auxins seems obvious now and solidifies my thinking that the short nodes have got less auxin.
I admit to not reading all the articles but just skimming, and what interested me was that if you grow Ginkgo in a greenhouse ( e.g. No Winter and very warm average day temps) you may get a different result. What I am thinking is that temperature may play a stronger part than we think. I wonder what would happen if the trees were grown in sub-tropical conditions where you pinched out the long shoots only after 1-2 leafs growth. Would the rest of the season be forcing the tree to push a short node into a long node because the tree has no choice. Eg. Where you and I grow Ginkgo maybe too cold to get active growth for at least 9-10 months of heat etc.
Now that is theory #1 above.
Theory #2 is a long way more WHACKY ( left field). If the short buds are not getting enough auxin, then we buy IBA or a similar Auxin related chemical and SPRAY THE ACTIVE LEAVES in question. ( every short bud etc on tree). Eg. Force the tree to grow / activate the short buds.

Lol, I think I have used up my horticultural skills and theory in the 15 mins writing this. Bear in mind that neither of these actions are at all practical, but hey my 5 cents worth.

Yah and it really doesn't give much useful. I don't really understand what "auxin" is. Plant hormone-yes, rooting compound-yes, but some articles make it sound like its an exact chemical and others like a dozen different things, IBA being one of them. It is measured, and spikes, and lows in it seems to do stuff but making it happen...no one seems to say how thatb might be done. 'Leo in N E Illinois' says there are some other good articles I need to try to find, and gave some suggestions on where to look. So I am off on a hunt!

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

The best varietals in my opinion are: 'Folkerts Select', 'Chase Manhattan', 'Munchkin' (also called 'Chris's Dwarf'), and lastly 'Mariken'. The first three all have leaves about the size of a quarter and of them 'Folkerts Select' is my favorite because goes head to head with the others for smallest leaves and it branches about every 120 deg. 'Chase Manhattan' has very similar leaves but is branching more right then left/180 deg.
(Snip...)
Does anyone else have cultivars of ginkgo biloba that they would like to tell us about and give a better description that those in the adds?

How long have you been growing 'Chase Manhattan'? I grew one for over 10 years and it's among the slowest-growing trees I've ever worked with. I wouldn't recommend it for bonsai at all. Here it is in March 2005, and again in December 2014:

I'm also curious about some other comments you've made. Ginkgo is ubitiquious anywhere I have lived and traveled, short of the tropics. Where are you not seeing them? I'm with Leo on the enthusiasm comment; it seems like you have a good start on cultivars, and adding some years of experience to your research will add value to your contributions.

 

[Eric Group]

Really? Mine heals just fine; dime size cuts close in a year, and better under cut paste. It also does pretty well having only been grown by "clip and grow" for 18 years. It's never had an inch of wire on its branches, and it's not too ugly.
View attachment 155865
View attachment 155866
View attachment 155867

This tree always makes me think of the alien hooker from Total Recall- "You make me wish I had three hands baby"! LOL

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

This tree always makes me think of the alien hooker from Total Recall- "You make me wish I had three hands baby"! LOL

This one is from the same batch of seeds I sewed in 1998, and it has none...

 

[Jerry Harder]

How long have you been growing 'Chase Manhattan'? I grew one for over 10 years and it's among the slowest-growing trees I've ever worked with. I wouldn't recommend it for bonsai at all. Here it is in March 2005, and again in December 2014:
View attachment 156937 View attachment 156938
I'm also curious about some other comments you've made. Ginkgo is ubitiquious anywhere I have lived and traveled, short of the tropics. Where are you not seeing them? I'm with Leo on the enthusiasm comment; it seems like you have a good start on cultivars, and adding some years of experience to your research will add value to your contributions.

 

[Jerry Harder]

In answer to the chase Manhattan question I just got mine this spring. M y main target has been to select trees with smaller leaves since ginkgos are reported to not reduce leaf size in bonsai cultivation and it goes head to head with other three for leaf size. You seem dissipated in the speed of growth. Did you expect differently? The data I had going in was 18''-3' high to 18'-3' wide in 15 years. It's certainly not a clip and grow and repeat tree. My recommendations were made on leaf size branching structure. Folkerts Select, my favorite, has better branching structure and can grow 15' in 10 year. (I like your tree by the way. It looks like you made some wise choices not just to chop it back.) Did you originally intend to do it as literati?

My experience and recommendations on pruning are specifically for ginkgo, and based on about 200 trees I grew from seed and all kinds of experiments. I admit that those experiments were not very scientific -with a control and all, and should probably qualify my statements with “For the first 5 years of a ginkgo life” I would not offer such advise for any other species.

So what happened to all those trees you may ask? When I moved to Nebraska, a packed them up for the winter with hay bales all around them just like I should have. Three weeks later something had found them a tasty treat and had eaten every single plant roots and all. I had nothing but empty pots of dirt. My new trees will be in a screen cage this winter. The bonsai club at Lt Louis at Shaw's Gardens was amazing with about 600 people in it so monthly meetings usually had a national level guest speaker. It was an amazing 5-year+ experience with a nearly professional base of club members to learn from. Bonsai has changed a bit in the last 15 years, but not a lot.

As far as the ubiquitous-ness goes they were thought to be extinct until they were found in China in the 1700's (Weird because some of the Chinese temple trees are thought to be over 1000 years old)-Closed boarders and all? They were all over St Louis MO where I lived 20 years ago, and that's how I got into them then. Now I live in Lincoln NE and know of only one tree in the area. Its a nice old one and I haven't visited it in season to confirm weather it's mature but think it is and its probably a male since no one that works there recalls any seeds. There used to be a half dozen more a few blocks from it with about 4 inch diameter trunks but they got cut down a year after I found them. They are not native and so have to be planted and it doesn't help that the seeds have the bad rep of being ill smelling so nearly everything propagated is male and if there happened to be a female that wasn't cut down there probably wouldn't be a male close enough by to fertilize it. It's not that they don't grow here or where I have been, they would. They just don't seem popular enough to have been planted or kept if they were. You apparently don't live or visit the same places as I. I live in the US and haven't seen many Indiana through to Nebraska. (Except in St Louis)

 

[KiwiPlantGuy]

Hi Jerry,
Sorry for giving you grief about the air-layer as I didn't have all the facts.

I feel we have had a good theoretical conversation about these cool trees, but for practical purposes and growing for Bonsai, it seems like Brain van Fleet has passed all the tests and has a 20 plus year old tree to show you ( and me) the way to grow them. In the ground for as long as possible, before very much restricting the roots etc.
The thread of 8-9 pages called 'Ginkgo from seed' in the deciduous section says it all.
So I think I am probably just muddying the water, and will leave it to the experienced crowd to comment.
Charles.

 

[Jerry Harder]

Hi, I was not trying to down- play your enthusiasm, just trying to introduce myself and background.
I can offer an opinion about dormant buds, and my guess is that some parts of the tree may have different amounts/levels of hormones. Depending on how high up the trunk they are. OR as other learned comments lead me to think that many of the buds are very dormant, and not much can alter their sleepiness.
Lastly, I can say that a vigorously growing ginkgo can be defoliated to initiate back-budding but you seem to have different results.

Please explain your short bud thing as maybe a high Nitrogen feed could be enough to push it long??

Here are some photos of various buds and how I would name them+... It might be there are some technical words I am miss-using Short bud should be short shoot, so please correct me if if there are others .

Hi Jerry,
Sorry for giving you grief about the air-layer as I didn't have all the facts.

I feel we have had a good theoretical conversation about these cool trees, but for practical purposes and growing for Bonsai, it seems like Brain van Fleet has passed all the tests and has a 20 plus year old tree to show you ( and me) the way to grow them. In the ground for as long as possible, before very much restricting the roots etc.
The thread of 8-9 pages called 'Ginkgo from seed' in the deciduous section says it all.
So I think I am probably just muddying the water, and will leave it to the experienced crowd to comment.
Charles.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

In answer to the chase Manhattan question I just got mine this spring. M y main target has been to select trees with smaller leaves since ginkgos are reported to not reduce leaf size in bonsai cultivation and it goes head to head with other three for leaf size. You seem dissipated in the speed of growth. Did you expect differently?

Honestly, I didn't know what to expect. My neighbor gave it to me around 2002 as a 2-year graft and it was always in an oversized bonsai pot. It was definitely a dwarf, but for bonsai strong growth is important, and this thing managed to grow from pinky-thick to thumb-thick in 12 years, and I may have pruned a few side shoots once, but it was otherwise left to its own. I don't have time or patience to wait for that to mature. Inside that timeframe, I've gotten good 5" trunks on tridents, and developed some fairly nice JBP and Japanese maples. When they grow strong, you can advance their bonsai training faster.

Bonsai has changed a bit in the last 15 years, but not a lot.

Sorry, I can't join you on this one. I think bonsai has seen a renaissance in the US in the last 15 years. Some clubs are still pretty rough from the show photos you see floating around, but in general; access to better material, teachers returning from Japan, and the (correct) internet sites have transformed bonsai here from sticks in pots to real bonsai for many people. My frustration is in people with sticks who think they're doing real bonsai.

You apparently don't live or visit the same places as I. I live in the US and haven't seen many Indiana through to Nebraska. (Except in St Louis)

Actually, I was born and raised in Iowa, so right in the bullseye.

Do you have some photos of your ginkgo bonsai to share? I'd love to see some you've raised for the last 15 years.

 

[Jerry Harder]

Here are some photos of various buds and how I would name them+... It might be there are some technical words I am miss-using Short bud should be short shoot, so please correct me if if there are othersView attachment 156947 .

I did a search on Ginkgo Brian van Fleet and think I followed the thread 'ginkgo from seed' but not sure if that was in deciduous section so there might be something more I didn't see. I did pick up a couple of interesting things, like, that it might be that bud scars don't heal well but the major chopping he does will. That there is considerable variation in trees grown from seed. (I already knew this) and that that variation might be extended to how trees heal. (Something I hadn't thought of) Mr Fleet has certainly mastered the art of chop and grow for ginkgo and it does exactly what he says it does -make for awesome trunks and lends itself to the totally fantastic flame style tree he does. The comments he makes about other methods taking much longer to develop comparable trunks are certainly true. There was a brief snipit about air layering, but covered non of the specifics I'm after. Maybe there will be a response and conversation that will be enlightening. As far as the air layering, did you find out something new? I think there is some cause for concern. But, It could also be that the tourniquet air layer causes stress that in turn cause it to produce roots above the tourniquet and that one sign of that stress is the yellowing I am seeing. I have other questions too, like does an air layer where the tree has a strip of bark removed all way round the tree yellow too? What causes the yellowing? Is it a lack of a certain nutrient the roots provide? If so, could additional amounts be supplied. For now got to go but it has indeed been a very interesting discussion.

 

[pweifan]

There seems to be a decent amount of Ginkgo knowledge on this thread so I'll just throw out a question: Are there any cultivars/varieties out there that are known females? I know most people avoid the females due to the smelly fruit, but I'm interested.

[Ninja edit:] Here's what I found on wikipedia: "Female cultivars include "Liberty Splendor", "Santa Cruz", and "Golden Girl", so named because of the striking yellow color of its leaves in the fall." Are there any others?

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

In general, this applies to most tree species used for bonsai not just Ginkgo. You need growth to develop a trunk and eventually the bonsai. Most bonsai spend their first 5 - 10 years being grown out to 10 times or more of their final height. Bonsai, especially from nursery stock are brought down to their final height. It is the only way to get the desired thickness for the trunks. Cultivars of trees that grow slower than 6 inches a year are too slow growing for medium to large size bonsai. Cultivars that grow less than 2 inches a year are too slow for even the smallest sizes. There's exceptions, but they are few.

The above in mind, you should be encouraging long shoots on all the material shown.

In my experience, most?, all? Ginkgo cultivars back bud on old wood. They will do so reliably if vigorous before the cut back. So work on getting thicker trunks rather than focusing on short shoots. Grow yours out first.