TooCoys
Shohin
Seriously. They had colors I’ve never seen, and even doubles!
Picked up a little orange guy with variegated leaves!
Picked up a little orange guy with variegated leaves!
I found Bougie Heaven!
- Thread starter TooCoys
- Start date
Cypress187
Masterpiece
Nice man! I would like to have more color also in my tree's, only have 2 tree's with white flowers.
Cadillactaste
Neagari Gal
I keep peaking around for Bougainvillea bonsai. Looking for a bract that starts white..then two tones a pink with it.
Congrats on the find. Bougies are a sound tree to work with.
Congrats on the find. Bougies are a sound tree to work with.
Starfox
Masterpiece
I have a white one in the landscape that starts off with a pinkish hue and then goes more white as the bracts age and another landscape one that changes from orange to a pink colour. I should take cuttings from these but they would be years away from being a bonsai. So much choice in bougs over here.
bonsaibp
Omono
I think we still have a large one like this- Maybe 8" across at base 28" or so tall. Might have a smaller one too, I'll take a look.
bonsaibp
Omono
You can take big cutings- ihave rooted cutting as big as my thigh.
Cadillactaste
Neagari Gal
Way to big to fit the bottom of my grow cart. Thinking no bigger than a shohin.
TooCoys
Shohin
Messing with some iPhone-ography while on the trip home.
SU2
Omono
How were the prices? I know this may not have appeal to everyone, but am currently on the look-out for gold/white/purple bougies so that I can wrap them together with Gardener's-Tape & zip-ties, then grow-out for 2-3yrs til I have a nice trunk that's actually 3-4 different specimen that've fused, at which point I can trunk-chop and start working a four-colored bougie!!!
Congrats on the purchase, bougies are just excellent (if you're into them and haven't seen it, I'd recommend subscribing to the "are you a bouger?" thread here
)Nope they're not a tree!!!! Haha I just had to say that, am not seriously of that silly 'purist' mindset in fact bougies make up the majority of my ~100 tree(&vine!) collection, anyways what you say is an understatement IMO, I mean bougies - so long as you've got the proper conditions for them to flourish - are one of the best species I've found to work with!! They:
- Have incredible "morphology" (unsure if I'm using that accurately), in that they can easily be made into any shape from a long hedge-row to a tall-ish tree, they
- Are absurdly resilient to insults, the sole "weakness" I've ever found is that, in fragile new specimen (particularly cuttings), the root-to-trunk connection-strength can be kind of weak (I often hear people saying that the roots themselves are weak, something I strongly dispute), in fact they're
- Such a strong plant that you can root hardwood cuttings with near-certain success, I've literally taken a 1' tall, 5.5" wide 'club' (straight piece of trunk from a gigantic specimen), sunk it 4" into perlite, and it rooted&shooted for me! Of my ~60-75 bougies, easily 1/3 are propagates, as you can count on at least an 80-85% success rate when rooting hardwood pieces (I don't have much luck w/ softer pieces, there needs to be some degree of lignification at the base of what you're trying to root IME, and while IBA will help it's not necessary / I don't even 'waste' the hormone/my time when sticking 2"+ bougie sticks as I know I have at least 9/10 success rate on average! Also,
- Bougies grow incredibly fast and ramify very well, they also (well, most cultivars) back-bud very very profusely and reliably, for instance every bougie I've ever collected from the ground / 'yardadori' was something that I trunk-chopped below any foliage, in the beginning I would be real careful about getting a good root-ball but over time found that it was hardly necessary- in fact, the bougie from my recent thread asking for styling-help was brought home with almost no roots at all, there were just several VERY tiny roots as shown here:
And that ^ guy did what all my bougies do- it just exploded with growth! I've actually got a 100% success-rate with 'yardadori', my only failures are with some hardwood propagates (and fwiw I don't propagate any HW cuttings that're <1-1.5" thick, I'm a "start with a finished-trunk" kind of bonsai'ist!)
The only "problem" I could cite for bougies is that, when developing them, it can be annoying having to deal with trying to maximize vegetative growth when the specimen wants to be in-flower for half the year, these things will flower any chance they get, so for me- while I'm trying to grow-out primaries/develop canopies- this is problematic. Would I change it if I could? HELL NO!!! Once I've actually gotten them developed to where I'd like, I'll be able to enjoy the profuse blooming!!!
[actually, there's 1 legitimate problem/down-side I can think of: they're not quick to callous-over/roll-over cuts so you've gotta be real precise in creating trunk-lines / doing carving work, you can't expect wounds to get calloused-over like on a crape or most other species]
They're truly an amazing species, actually my username on the IBC boards is "Bougies!!1!1!!!
", lol Would love to see the 8" across one if you have pics handy
And as big as your thigh?! Again, would love pics if you happen to have any!! In no way do I doubt you, have just simply never seen branches/trunking with that girth rooted/propagated, my biggest was a 1' tall / 5.5" wide stump, it'd been at the curb for almost 48hrs before I showed up w/ handsaw to cut a 1' section of a limb off it, I stuck it 4" into perlite (and stabilized the top so it wouldn't fall - I don't like to insert cuttings too-deep as the roots come from the bottom, more trunk submerged = bigger pot/container for life), it took 6wks instead of the usual 5-10 days to start pushing buds but it put out buds on both sides and, this year, is still growing strong:
Am unsure if I'll carve-off the top half of this club this season or in '19, right now I'm just growing-out my primaries (actually on one side there's (2) branches leaving the same spot on the trunk, they're wrapped-together and zip-tied, my first attempt at approach-grafting/fusing branches in this manner!), but yeah it's just emblematic of how tough these guys are!! Would absolutely love to see your thicker cuttings, tbh I'd expect that *any* sized cutting would take so long as it's lignified, for some reason I had no success trying to root fresh/supple tips, like 0% success, but if it's started to lignify it becomes easier and, if it's actually got real bark, it's almost guaranteed to take IME! And that's w/o IBA, but I should note that IBA does work with bougies (I know it's not effective on all plants, however I've looked into it and bougies are for sure one of the species that it works on, IIRC the IBA gave a ~5% boost to either the speed or # (or both) of the fresh roots on cuttings in the experiment I'd read!)
TooCoys
Shohin
I bought my 1gal plant for $10. Their bigger pots with the double blooms were $20. But they were all very very healthy plants. I was impressed with their grow quality.
bonsaibp
Omono
How were the prices? I know this may not have appeal to everyone, but am currently on the look-out for gold/white/purple bougies so that I can wrap them together with Gardener's-Tape & zip-ties, then grow-out for 2-3yrs til I have a nice trunk that's actually 3-4 different specimen that've fused, at which point I can trunk-chop and start working a four-colored bougie!!!
Congrats on the purchase, bougies are just excellent (if you're into them and haven't seen it, I'd recommend subscribing to the "are you a bouger?" thread here
Nope they're not a tree!!!! Haha I just had to say that, am not seriously of that silly 'purist' mindset in fact bougies make up the majority of my ~100 tree(&vine!) collection, anyways what you say is an understatement IMO, I mean bougies - so long as you've got the proper conditions for them to flourish - are one of the best species I've found to work with!! They:
- Have incredible "morphology" (unsure if I'm using that accurately), in that they can easily be made into any shape from a long hedge-row to a tall-ish tree, they
- Are absurdly resilient to insults, the sole "weakness" I've ever found is that, in fragile new specimen (particularly cuttings), the root-to-trunk connection-strength can be kind of weak (I often hear people saying that the roots themselves are weak, something I strongly dispute), in fact they're
- Such a strong plant that you can root hardwood cuttings with near-certain success, I've literally taken a 1' tall, 5.5" wide 'club' (straight piece of trunk from a gigantic specimen), sunk it 4" into perlite, and it rooted&shooted for me! Of my ~60-75 bougies, easily 1/3 are propagates, as you can count on at least an 80-85% success rate when rooting hardwood pieces (I don't have much luck w/ softer pieces, there needs to be some degree of lignification at the base of what you're trying to root IME, and while IBA will help it's not necessary / I don't even 'waste' the hormone/my time when sticking 2"+ bougie sticks as I know I have at least 9/10 success rate on average! Also,
- Bougies grow incredibly fast and ramify very well, they also (well, most cultivars) back-bud very very profusely and reliably, for instance every bougie I've ever collected from the ground / 'yardadori' was something that I trunk-chopped below any foliage, in the beginning I would be real careful about getting a good root-ball but over time found that it was hardly necessary- in fact, the bougie from my recent thread asking for styling-help was brought home with almost no roots at all, there were just several VERY tiny roots as shown here:
View attachment 201140
And that ^ guy did what all my bougies do- it just exploded with growth! I've actually got a 100% success-rate with 'yardadori', my only failures are with some hardwood propagates (and fwiw I don't propagate any HW cuttings that're <1-1.5" thick, I'm a "start with a finished-trunk" kind of bonsai'ist!)
The only "problem" I could cite for bougies is that, when developing them, it can be annoying having to deal with trying to maximize vegetative growth when the specimen wants to be in-flower for half the year, these things will flower any chance they get, so for me- while I'm trying to grow-out primaries/develop canopies- this is problematic. Would I change it if I could? HELL NO!!! Once I've actually gotten them developed to where I'd like, I'll be able to enjoy the profuse blooming!!!
[actually, there's 1 legitimate problem/down-side I can think of: they're not quick to callous-over/roll-over cuts so you've gotta be real precise in creating trunk-lines / doing carving work, you can't expect wounds to get calloused-over like on a crape or most other species]
They're truly an amazing species, actually my username on the IBC boards is "Bougies!!1!1!!!
Would love to see the 8" across one if you have pics handy
View attachment 201141
Am unsure if I'll carve-off the top half of this club this season or in '19, right now I'm just growing-out my primaries (actually on one side there's (2) branches leaving the same spot on the trunk, they're wrapped-together and zip-tied, my first attempt at approach-grafting/fusing branches in this manner!), but yeah it's just emblematic of how tough these guys are!! Would absolutely love to see your thicker cuttings, tbh I'd expect that *any* sized cutting would take so long as it's lignified, for some reason I had no success trying to root fresh/supple tips, like 0% success, but if it's started to lignify it becomes easier and, if it's actually got real bark, it's almost guaranteed to take IME! And that's w/o IBA, but I should note that IBA does work with bougies (I know it's not effective on all plants, however I've looked into it and bougies are for sure one of the species that it works on, IIRC the IBA gave a ~5% boost to either the speed or # (or both) of the fresh roots on cuttings in the experiment I'd read!)
My hand spread is 91/2" from tip of thumb to tip of middle finger
These were dug in August of 2010 with almost no roots Pots are 14" wide
This thumb size 6" tall-when trimmed is white , orange then pink
This one was growing in a small cutout in a driveway with no way to dig so we cut it flat across the base. Thats a 12" paver in the pot which is 18" across
And this last one was a cut below a fork on a huge vine.
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bonsaibp
Omono
WTF I don't know what happened above the pics multiplied!
Cadillactaste
Neagari Gal
Holy crap! They are my favorites, but I'd have to build a greenhouse to winter those big boys.
SU2
Omono
ROFL that's basically where I am right now, have wayyy too many large bougies and know I've got no chance of fitting them in my screened-patio this winter (like I did last year), am so uncertain about how I'm going to approach this winter but suspect I'll have to build some type of outdoor shelter (plywood & 4x4's) as I can probably fit ~1/2 of what I've got right now...am actually planning to do as late of a pruning in the season as-is-safe to make them more compact for winter!
That thing is just such a beast! Wish I had it at my place
Hell, if it were in my area I'd be trying to get the owner to let me be its maintainer, would happily manage that guy for free ;DThat thing is awesome!!! Do you happen to know what cultivar it is? The bark on that is different and I've only got 1 bougie with bark like that (out of scores of bougies):
It's amazing how well they can do when collected, you really don't even need to bring roots lol! Have had literally 2 roots on a large bougie (it split from a larger stump and the roots didn't come) and was familiar-enough that I knew not to worry much, was excited to see the thing explode with growth as if it'd had perfect roots! They seem to just have no hesitation to put out tons of roots once the foliage starts!!
What color does that bloom? It looks variegated but in a way I'm not familiar with, like a 'weak' variegation (or are my eyes playing tricks on me?), how long do you expect you'll have to spend growing-out your primaries? Is that how you approach it? IE, spend a long time growing-out your first set of branches, then hard-prune...am doing that on mine and expecting 2-4yrs, depending on specimen, before the primaries are actually 'fitting' the trunk!! I've got one that's 14" wide that I just dunno what to do with, have thought of just styling it like a Baobab (baobob?) tree but that's boring...thing is literally a giant block, will probably end up getting very extensive carving (have already removed a few softball's worth of wood but could stand to remove 2-3x more!)
Gah it's such a mis-match when it's a giant stump with little shoots ;p I see you wiring them, how many trees are you maintaining this way? I wire a lot but, on rapid-growing stuff (especially if it's just forcing the branch-angle or branch-collar position), I use lots and lots of zip ties, they make it sooo much faster&easier to manage the direction of shoots when you're growing-out a lot of raw stock!
Cadillactaste
Neagari Gal
@SU2 ... Sadly the new care giver is hard pruning with what seems no intention of having its old glory days of what I remembered. Just hard pruning each year.
But dang!!! The bark on your tree is stunning. Nice bones there. Mine being what I assume a root grown out. I don't see that amazing texture on mine.
But dang!!! The bark on your tree is stunning. Nice bones there. Mine being what I assume a root grown out. I don't see that amazing texture on mine.
SU2
Omono
Grr that's so frustrating!! Nothing worse than seeing people do dumb stuff with awesome material!! The fire dept nearby my house 'crape murdered' their crapes wayyy early in the season (before frost-risks were over) and, as I watched it struggle to life, found them 'murder' (hard-prune) it again a few months later! It's not dead now but never got a good flush and is probably just holding on for life at this point! They also had a niwaki styled juniper that I was in love with that was just removed for no reason I could see (maybe someone took it home lol! It wasn't in bad health, they weren't doing any construction/renovations....hmmm now I can't help wonder if a car hit it, it's near-enough to the road that that's a possibility, can't imagine anyone intentionally removing the thing!)
Thanks
Yeah the only way to have that deep-fissured bark is on more mature material, TBH it was just learning that you could do that (trunk-chop mature stuff and re-grow canopies) that got me into this hobby, am now the proud owner of a bunch of living-trunks lol, slowly growing-in canopies ;D
bonsaibp
Omono
ROFL that's basically where I am right now, have wayyy too many large bougies and know I've got no chance of fitting them in my screened-patio this winter (like I did last year), am so uncertain about how I'm going to approach this winter but suspect I'll have to build some type of outdoor shelter (plywood & 4x4's) as I can probably fit ~1/2 of what I've got right now...am actually planning to do as late of a pruning in the season as-is-safe to make them more compact for winter!
That thing is just such a beast! Wish I had it at my place
That thing is awesome!!! Do you happen to know what cultivar it is? The bark on that is different and I've only got 1 bougie with bark like that (out of scores of bougies):
View attachment 202384
It's amazing how well they can do when collected, you really don't even need to bring roots lol! Have had literally 2 roots on a large bougie (it split from a larger stump and the roots didn't come) and was familiar-enough that I knew not to worry much, was excited to see the thing explode with growth as if it'd had perfect roots! They seem to just have no hesitation to put out tons of roots once the foliage starts!!
What color does that bloom? It looks variegated but in a way I'm not familiar with, like a 'weak' variegation (or are my eyes playing tricks on me?), how long do you expect you'll have to spend growing-out your primaries? Is that how you approach it? IE, spend a long time growing-out your first set of branches, then hard-prune...am doing that on mine and expecting 2-4yrs, depending on specimen, before the primaries are actually 'fitting' the trunk!! I've got one that's 14" wide that I just dunno what to do with, have thought of just styling it like a Baobab (baobob?) tree but that's boring...thing is literally a giant block, will probably end up getting very extensive carving (have already removed a few softball's worth of wood but could stand to remove 2-3x more!)
Not sure of color of bloom has done so yet since collecting. Needs fertilizer which is why color is off.
Gah it's such a mis-match when it's a giant stump with little shoots ;p I see you wiring them, how many trees are you maintaining this way? I wire a lot but, on rapid-growing stuff (especially if it's just forcing the branch-angle or branch-collar position), I use lots and lots of zip ties, they make it sooo much faster&easier to manage the direction of shoots when you're growing-out a lot of raw stock!
100's- I have a bonsai nursery full of trees in training.
TooCoys
Shohin
Have any small ones you want to sell??
SU2
Omono
FWIW, in your zone you can root hardwood cuttings of bougies of any size, so if you wanted a small one you could just bring your shears to someone's bush (w/ permission of course!) and find that ideal piece for you! When I approach getting stock this way, I look at branch-forks through the large hedge/vine because the piece I'm going to take & root is one where its base *is* its current 'branch collar', this gives it a flare at the bottom right off the bat
(ie, instead of cutting the piece I truly want, I cut the branch it protrudes from, right above & below its branch-collar, so I can then use my knob-cutters at home to really get it smooth & ready for rooting. After ~5-8wks once it's growing I'll quickly work toward getting rid of excess substrate, the substrate that was initially used to help "keep it in place" is now removed to prevent rotting of the bark!)The success rate is 80%'s to high-90's depending on time of year and technique, I don't even use my IBA when propagating hardwood bougies as they're just reliable enough themselves (just got 5 or 6 new ones last week, should be popping buds any day now!) super easy to get any size / shape you want I mean I've heard stories of massive sections of trunk that were rooted (have done close to 6" widths myself!)
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