Ginkgo chop - where and when?

[MrFancyPlants]

Great info... on a zombie thread. Are they also reluctant to air-layer?

 

[0soyoung]

Great info... on a zombie thread. Are they also reluctant to air-layer?

An air layer is just a cutting with a water supply.

 

[Vance Wood]

@Paulpash - Ginkgo will back bud on very old wood if cut back below existing branches. But you are correct, there is a strong tendency to sprout from roots. If you remove root sprouts immediately, a few more will sprout on old bark.

This ginkgo was harvested from a weedy lot in Milwaukee back in 2010 or so. It was over 10 feet tall, and had no branches below about 5 feet tall. The seedling was at least 25, maybe 35 years old. I counted rings from another slightly smaller one harvested at the same time. Unsexed seedling from a female tree planted in the 1920's. It was dug and chopped in early spring before leaf sprouted. It takes quite a while for dormant buds under bark more than 5 years old to sprout. It was chopped in March, the first buds opened to leaves in middle of July. For that reason I suspect chopping in August (mid-summer) would not result in buds sprouting that year, but rather the following spring. Protect from extreme cold the winter after the chop.

View attachment 229743 View attachment 229744

I took possession of this one in 2016. Really have done almost nothing. As you can see, back budding was sparse, but there were at least 4 buds that became branches. A couple had sprouted from the roots, those were removed right away.

@cbroad - Most named ginkgo cultivars are propagated by grafting. Cuttings take as much as 9 months to 24 months to fully root. Because cuttings are slow, and require a ''trick or two'' all commercial nurseries propagate them by grafting. So if the ginkgo has a cultivar name it is grafted except where the advert specifically says cutting propagated. Brent at Evergreen Gardenworks does root cuttings of Chi-Chi. You can root cuttings yourself, but they will take time, my % success was zero for 20+ cuttings, taken in batches of 5 or more in 3 different years. It is not an easy species to root from cuttings. Brent is a genius and has specialized mist beds for rooting cuttings.

Grafted ginkgos, more so than maples, will heal grafting scars to the point where they are no longer visible. Especially for normal size and semi-dwarf cultivars the graft union will disappear entirely with time. This bodes well for using grafted female ginkgo clones as bonsai. Some dwarf and miniature ginkgo the growth rates will be different enough that the scion will become obvious as the understock will grow faster than the scion. But grafted trees are pretty much the only source for named cultivars.
I might have the exact measurement wrong, but I think I'm pretty close to accurate on the measurements below;
Semi-Dwarf trees grow less than 10 inches per year
Dwarf trees grow less than 6 inches per year
Miniature trees grow less than 2 inches per year.

So there is nothing wrong with using a grafted ginkgo for bonsai.

Female ginkgo.
I had the opportunity to eat boiled ginkgo nuts, as is and used in soups, stuffing for chicken, and in a gravy for beef. They are delicious. This got me fired up about raising a ginkgo for nuts, and or using a female ginkgo as bonsai. Imagine one inch diameter nuts hanging in a shohin size ginkgo. I was disappointed when I realized that like the North American hickories, Ginkgo need to be over 30 years old from seed before they begin flowering. As bonsai, even if you have a tree of sufficient age, they tend to need to be fairly large trees before they will flower. You ''never'' see photos of ginkgo with seed hanging. Even from China, where commercial ginkgo seed production is common. Two reasons, both the Chinese and Japanese consider the odor of ripening fruit obnoxious, which is really only a problem when you have a tree with thousands of nuts hanging. The odor from just a few should not be an issue. Second it is very likely that female tree rarely fruit when container grown and pruned to bonsai size, even larger bonsai sizes don't seem to be large enough for nut production.

So I am not trying to be a ''Debbie Downer'' but it is unlikely you will get a ginkgo to fruit and produce nuts in a container. But DAMN IT, I'm still trying. Thirty years is a long time to wait for unsexed seedlings, but I intend to live long enough.

There is always the chance of finding a precocious seedling that will bloom at an age less than 30 years. Named varieties of other species of nut trees were selected for this trait. So who knows, with enough seedlings and grafted female trees, someone might get lucky.

Trouble with this is that most Gingkos are grafted to avoid the stinky fruit.

 

[amatbrewer]

Leo,
This seems to contradict a lot of what I have read and been told about Ginko's not healing over large cuts. I have been hesitant to do more drastic work on mine because of this and would love to know if I could be doing more.
It that chop healing over? Are you anticipating that it will?

 

[cbroad]

@Leo in N E Illinois
Damn, I am always amazed by your bredth of knowledge; a mile deep and a mile wide! I am very skeptical about random info on the web, but I have come to trust yours. Thank you for your time here and knowledge!

At my nursery, we had a shipment of these small 4" potted unique plants, and since I was the one receiving the shipment, I got first dibs on the stock and immediately grabbed all three of the ginkgos .

At the time, I believed they were too small to be grafted so I assumed they were cuttings, and also I couldn't see an obvious graft union (must of been done really well). Your assessment sounds pretty solid and with the swelling bases and one sucker, I'm now about 99% sure they are grafted.

As far as your info about growth rates, I'm still not sure how big mine will get as there is very little info about this cultivar. The grower's tag said 2' tall in 10 years. Mine shot up to more than foot in their first year after repotting, but have slowed considerably since then. Maybe it had to do with a slight trim of the roots and more room to grow... We'll see after repotting if I get more induced vigor, or if they stay more on the slower side.

Probably about 12-15 years ago when I had a chi chi, I took some cuttings from it, and put them in my propagator. I let a friend borrow it so he could do some cuttings of various other plants. He neglected his and my cuttings and everything died... When I got it back, I noticed one of my chi chi cuttings had began to root, but it was only a slight nub protruding from the cut .

In my attempt to not bog down this thread anymore than I already have, when it comes time for repotting in the next couple weeks, I'll also tag you in the new thread for your sage information! Thank you.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Leo,
This seems to contradict a lot of what I have read and been told about Ginko's not healing over large cuts. I have been hesitant to do more drastic work on mine because of this and would love to know if I could be doing more.
It that chop healing over? Are you anticipating that it will?

Nowhere did I say they heal over pruning wounds. They will heal over small wounds, maybe less than 3 cm or 5/8 inch diameter. Large cuts will take a lifetime to heal over. The huge scar on my ginkgo will eventually be carved, hollowed out and made into a hollow tree. Or I might change it to a 'V' cut, fill with wood putty and disguise it. Either way, I don't expect the cut to heal over. I am waiting for my carving skills to get better, before I tackle the carving project. This is a tree in progress. 2018 was repotted and roots worked rather roughly, 2019 will be to get some vigorous growth out of it. Then depending on what growth I get, I will either continue branch work or I will figure out what I'm going to do with the pruning scar.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

@cbroad - thank you for the kind words. But be cautious, sometimes even I am wrong. Keep a sense of skepticism, so you can spot when I do ''mis-remember, or mis-quote something. I have the nasty talent of being able to make things sound reasonable at first glance through. I do get things wrong once in a while. Though I do try my best to get it right.

Names of the ginkgo cultivars will help as I have read quite a bit about different cultivars. Two feet in 10 years is 2.4 inches per year, Could be considered a miniature, or a smaller growing dwarf. The trees don't read their own labels, miniatures can have a growth spurt, and like a juniper reverting to juvenile foliage for a year or two after pruning, ginkgos can have a growth spurt then revert back to the mature behavior. If over time (the next couple years) the ginkgo continues to grow rampantly more than the 2 inches per year, you might be encountering a case of reversion of the witches broom back to normal. This occasionally happens with dwarf and miniature cultivars, but it is not overly common. Most sold in the nursery trade are fairly stable. So expect occasional spurts of growth, then the tree should settle into not much more than 2 inches per year of growth. So when you tag me in your new repotting a ginkgo thread, if you have the tag, include the cultivar name.

 

[amatbrewer]

Large cuts will take a lifetime to heal over. The huge scar on my ginkgo will eventually be carved, hollowed out and made into a hollow tree.

Darn, that is NOT what I wanted to hear. I was hoping you were going to say that them not healing big cuts was wrong so I could do drastic cuts on mine without risking ugly scars. But at least this is consistent with what I have heard from other sources.
I guess I am stuck with my ugly tree until my skills improve (vastly) or I can get my hands on some better material.
The reply is much appreciated!

 

[cbroad]

Keep a sense of skepticism

I always do . Whether it's a good thing or bad, I hold few beliefs that are absolute. I'm the kind of person that hears something but must come to grips with it on my own and develop my own understanding, and then compartmentalize the info and see how well it fits into my own understanding (that statement probably doesn't make much sense...). I guess the point I'm trying to make is I still question everything, but I get the sense your knowledge is from much research and/or vast experience, and I tend to hold these concepts in higher regards than just random b.s. spewed on the net.

I thought I put the name on one of the posts, but I didn't... The cultivar name is 'green pagoda' (there was a link to my original thread about them in one of my earlier posts). Just went out and measured past growth, it seems apical buds grow closer to 8" per year, and side branches are around 5" per year, so using your measurements I would put this between semi-dwarf to dwarf; two are still in one gallons and the last one was put into a cut down 3gallon pot, so I'm sure this has had some bearing on past growth.

I've always said "plants don't read tags" when talking to customers because from my experience, plants always out perform what the growers say. I would find it a little funny when I was describing plants to customers and had to contradict what the tags said; when they asked why the sign or tag said something different, I would tell them that's the "estimated landscape size" and then the bit about plants not reading tags. My biggest beef at the nursery was for photinia and gold mop cypress, the tags would say photinia gets 6-8' and gold mops 3-4'; just utter b.s.... Oh, and how leylands get 15-20'....

And I can get you boxes of ginkgo nuts, but I'm not cleaning them and the package probably wouldn't make out of Richmond before it would be siezed and destroyed. Richmond planted tons around the city probably in the 20s-40s back when growers were still selling females and didn't realize the mess and smell they make. They are pretty massive in my opinion, probably around 60' tall, and truly spectacular in the fall!

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

My ginkgo heals wounds well. It has been chopped repeatedly over almost 20 years while grown in the ground.

 

[_#1_]

Hey @Brian Van Fleet, do you think a branch about the size of a pinky finger have any chance of air layered? I made the mistake of being complacent and the right branch got away from me. Now it's showing inverse taper. What are the chance of layering off just about the entire branch leaving about two inches and start over? That branch have no taper and little movement anyway. TIA

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Hey @Brian Van Fleet, do you think a branch about the size of a pinky finger have any chance of air layered? I made the mistake of being complacent and the right branch got away from me. Now it's showing inverse taper. What are the chance of layering off just about the entire branch leaving about two inches and start over? That branch have no taper and little movement anyway. TIA
View attachment 229848 View attachment 229849 View attachment 229850

Nice stock there. Pinky-thick is pretty thin to air-layer. Maybe let it run this year and you’ll have something twice the size to layer...?

 

[Oliver Muscio]

BVF is right: they heal even large chops well while growing (vigorously) in the ground. Not as well when potted.

 

[sorce]

It's still in the ground - I chopped it to the first branch but all that popped was at the base - sucker like growth. I decided a bigger tree was needed so it's just been doing it's thing. Can't believe 6 years have passed!

2019
-2012

I'm not going to correct you!

Sorce

 

[_#1_]

Nice stock there. Pinky-thick is pretty thin to air-layer. Maybe let it run this year and you’ll have something twice the size to layer...?

Thanks BFV. This one is actually in a largish pot heeled in the grow bed. Hmmm I don't want to just discard that right branch, but at the same time I want to start over ASAP.

Will a cutting this size take?

 

[Paulpash]

2019
-2012

I'm not going to correct you!

Sorce

I measure years in growing seasons!!

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Thanks BFV. This one is actually in a largish pot heeled in the grow bed. Hmmm I don't want to just discard that right branch, but at the same time I want to start over ASAP.

Will a cutting this size take?

Don’t know, but I’d bet against it.

 

[AlainK]

Cuts don't heal well...