[Little Dingus] Desmodium Unifoliatium (blue bell)

LittleDingus

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I think these guys are interesting enough to warrant starting a thread on :)

Desmodium unifoliatium: also known as blue bell, tick weed, begger's lice...ok, the last two are more for the desmodium species that are truly weeds. Unifoliatium can at least gain some thickness and eventually look like a tree! Maybe the others can too? I'd love an orange variety if so :D

I bought 4 of these last fall.

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They even came with some bonus seed!

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I did not try to plant the seed. In fact, as soon as I saw the seed I about went into convulsions! At the time I did NOT realize what desmodium meant! I spent most of my childhood with socks that looked like this:

tickweed.gif

which is where the common names "tick weed" and "begger's lice" come from!

But the flowers are so cute and well scaled for bonsai and purple!

The internet is a wonder breeding ground for plaigarism and every description everywhere for blue bell is some copy/paste of

"produces a beautiful fragrant purple flower that smells like grapes and large thorns"

Which is what sold me...purple...smells like "grapes and large thorns". I wasn't sure what "large thorns" smelled like, but a few weeks later, I learned!

20201028_172000.jpg

I still don't know what a large thorn smells like...but any thorn large enough to have it's own thorns deserves some respect! The first round of new growth since I purchased these guys was full of 3" thorns!

20201028_171743.jpg

I've never intentionally grown this flavor of weed before...which is why I got 4 of them...to play :)

I immediately transplanted one into a small pot. It died after a few months. I had to butcher to roots to get it to fit into the pot. I don't have any pictures of that process :(

Another one I chopped...but not a harsh chop. That one is back budding nicely now. Sorry...not good before pictures :( But here it is today. All that low trunk growth is new.

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The 3rd I put into a 3 gallon grow bag to see if that would speed growth.

20210704_075027.jpg

It's too early to tell if the large bag will speed the growth of the desmodium...but it has certainly done wonders for that sedum! I received a "freebie" spring of sedum about the size of my thump in a pot order about the same time I potted this into the bag...late October 2020. I chucked it into this pot thinking it would get a little water now and then while I figured out what to do with it. The sedum has since filled in most of the pot!

The forth one was turned over to the care of my daughter because she wanted something non-succulent to care for. She put it in a slightly nicer but only slightly larger pot than it came in...and it has since fallen back into mostly my care.

20210704_074752.jpg

And that's where we are today! I've done a poor job documenting their care...I'm hoping having a thread now will fix that. I've had them less than a year now...they sat under lights all winter. They sit in full sun dawn til ~2PM on my deck now. Other than a first repot out of the nursery soil...and a chop on one to experiment...no work has been done on them yet.

The do have pretty purple flowers though :D

20210704_074850.jpg

...which do smell like "grapes and large thorns" ;)
 

LittleDingus

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In a more serious tone:

If anyone has experience with these, I'd love to hear it! I worry that they might grow viney for a number of years before they ever start to thicken. I'm not convinced the normal "grow a long sacrifice branch" is the way to go to thicken them. I could be wrong...but the natives I'm used to mostly grow long, ground hugging vine-like branches. So far, these seem to grow somewhat similar. I'm wondering if, instead, they need lots of branches to thicken?

If anyone has experience, tips, tricks, examples of theirs, please post! Thank you :D
 

bonsai418

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Potted up my Desmodium today I got from Wigerts ($25 + shipping). Creating Penjing is my thing. I did prune her back hard then wired her. She was potted into Wigerts premium bonsai soil.
Also use Wigerts 6 month slow release bonsai fertilizer (24-5-10). I feel save to still pot her up now since we still have about 3 - 3 1/2 month of growing season left. She will stay outside even in Winter and only come in if we get a frost warning.
 

bonsai418

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This is after. The rocks are only there to keep the Tree stable, once rooted in I will remove them
 

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LittleDingus

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This is after. The rocks are only there to keep the Tree stable, once rooted in I will remove them

I love the turkey and the little vegetable garden :D

We're hoping to move closer to grandkids next spring. I'm looking forward to hiding a fairy garden in the landscape for them! I've been looking at tiny houses and accessories lately!

I have a quercus subor 3 tree "forest" that I just made a wooden bench for. I recently put in a path and planted a couple different kinds of thyme for groundcover and small bushes along a path. Not nearly as cool as what you have there though! I haven't put a lot of time into it yet...just starting to think through and feel out where I might want it to go. I know there's some terra-scapping I want done before I get too "permanent". I also need my ground cover to thicken up enough that I can break it apart and spread it around a little more naturally.

Anyway, I do really enjoy Penjing...thanks for sharing yours @bonsai418 :D
 

LittleDingus

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Flowers!!!

20221121_160448.jpg 20221121_160552.jpg

This one was chopped pretty high back in July 2021. It was chopped here:

20221121_163537.jpg

The cambium doesn't role over the wound...but then again, there's not been a lot of thickening since last year either.

Here's the full plant today:

20221121_160434.jpg

It's quite a bit larger than the picture after the chop above...but not much thicker.

There were some new roots that had sprouted from the trunk that have become exposed over time. Curious, I slipped the tree out of the pot and was greeted with this:

20221121_161014.jpg

Sorry about the color...the nearest lights were my blurple grow lights. What's maybe hard to see is that there is a layer of clay hydroponic balls that were the bottom drain layer. Then there is a thick ring of roots! And by ring I mean:

20221121_161104.jpg

They were circling and had pushed the plant higher up in the pot by almost an inch :(

So...time for a change :)

Yeah, yeah...wrong season...don't repot plants in flower...yadda, yadda...these things are weeds and I have a spare :)

Here you can see the trunk roots that had developed:

20221121_161916.jpg

I trimmed the trunk roots off and raised the trunk out of the soil so that the bend is just below the soil level.

After some root combing, branch bending, and a new pot, I ended up with this:

20221121_165115.jpg

The total pot volume is almost exactly the same as the pot it came out of...just shallow and wide.

I think I'm going to try and keep this one in this pot for a few years to keep it smaller. It'll probably need to be repotted every year. Next time I'll try repotting in a better season ;) But I think I'll try and get this one to fill in at about this size:

20221121_165140.jpg

No wire yet. I find these smaller branches when bent hard don't fully spring back...they are closer to a vine than a tree branch until they thicken more. If it behaves as they have the past few years, after the flowers there should be a flush of new growth. After that, I'll wire up some branches.
 

LittleDingus

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Here's tree number 2:

20221121_164525.jpg

The sedum has gotten out of control! That's all from a single thumb sized "freebee" included with a @sorce pot order from about 2 years ago. Some of it had draped into a bag of crabapple seeds that was sitting right next to it and that grow bag is now almost full of sedum too!

This one might get chopped for clippings in the spring. I'm curious how well clippings will strike now.
 
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Here's tree number 2:

View attachment 463685

The sedum has gotten out of control! That's all from a single thumb sized "freebee" included with a @sorce pot order from about 2 years ago. Some of it had draped into a bag of crabapple seeds that was sitting right next to it and that grow bag is now almost full of sedum too!

This one might get chopped for clippings in the spring. I'm curious how well clippings will strike no
That pot looks familiar. JK. I love this thread! :)

ChaChaChia.gif,
 
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Carol 83

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Flowers!!!

View attachment 463666 View attachment 463667

This one was chopped pretty high back in July 2021. It was chopped here:

View attachment 463670

The cambium doesn't role over the wound...but then again, there's not been a lot of thickening since last year either.

Here's the full plant today:

View attachment 463665

It's quite a bit larger than the picture after the chop above...but not much thicker.

There were some new roots that had sprouted from the trunk that have become exposed over time. Curious, I slipped the tree out of the pot and was greeted with this:

View attachment 463668

Sorry about the color...the nearest lights were my blurple grow lights. What's maybe hard to see is that there is a layer of clay hydroponic balls that were the bottom drain layer. Then there is a thick ring of roots! And by ring I mean:

View attachment 463673

They were circling and had pushed the plant higher up in the pot by almost an inch :(

So...time for a change :)

Yeah, yeah...wrong season...don't repot plants in flower...yadda, yadda...these things are weeds and I have a spare :)

Here you can see the trunk roots that had developed:

View attachment 463669

I trimmed the trunk roots off and raised the trunk out of the soil so that the bend is just below the soil level.

After some root combing, branch bending, and a new pot, I ended up with this:

View attachment 463671

The total pot volume is almost exactly the same as the pot it came out of...just shallow and wide.

I think I'm going to try and keep this one in this pot for a few years to keep it smaller. It'll probably need to be repotted every year. Next time I'll try repotting in a better season ;) But I think I'll try and get this one to fill in at about this size:

View attachment 463672

No wire yet. I find these smaller branches when bent hard don't fully spring back...they are closer to a vine than a tree branch until they thicken more. If it behaves as they have the past few years, after the flowers there should be a flush of new growth. After that, I'll wire up some branches.
Anxious for mine to flower.
 

LittleDingus

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I don't see anything on mine that looks like a flower bud. Haven't had it long so, it's coming! Huge thorns though.

I keep mine on the wet side...probably too wet even. Mine have not been growing thorns lately. One did grow huge thorns shortly after I got it but it was on the dry side then.

I suspect that the amount of water available during or maybe just before active growth influences thorn production. It's not a coincidence that many more desert plants evolved thorns than tropical ones.

This is something I'll probably experiment with if I do get cuttings to take.
 

LittleDingus

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Anxious for mine to flower.

I haven't noticed a trigger yet. Both of these two are kept within 2-3 feet of the other constantly. One's flowering profusely...the other looks to be making new growth buds instead.

My best guess is, again, water. After moving inside, the smaller one dries out faster and remains drier due to less frequent watering, lower humidity, smaller pot volume, and lack of the chia pet mulch layer ;)

Mine don't seem to flower by season or growth cycle anyway. Both were in flower in early spring just after we moved...but not very showy at that time.
 

Carol 83

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I haven't noticed a trigger yet. Both of these two are kept within 2-3 feet of the other constantly. One's flowering profusely...the other looks to be making new growth buds instead.

My best guess is, again, water. After moving inside, the smaller one dries out faster and remains drier due to less frequent watering, lower humidity, smaller pot volume, and lack of the chia pet mulch layer ;)

Mine don't seem to flower by season or growth cycle anyway. Both were in flower in early spring just after we moved...but not very showy at that time.
Good info, thanks. I'm happy it's doing well inside, I can wait for the flowers.
 

MHBonsai

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For what it’s worth these will propagate really well from root cuttings, I discovered.

Mine doesn’t send to flower on any schedule. I do wonder if they will flower predictably if you prune them hard?
 
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I saw something today that looked like old flower buds, but it was dead. Based on that I believe I'm on the wrong end of seeing flowers anytime soon. I've only had it a couple of months so I'm watching it for a while, to see how it grows before I decide what to do with it. These are the thorns that @Carol 83 keeps telling her friends about. ;)

I also keep it on the dry side so your theory may be correct.
 

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namnhi

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For what it’s worth these will propagate really well from root cuttings, I discovered.

Mine doesn’t send to flower on any schedule. I do wonder if they will flower predictably if you prune them hard?
The trick I seen/heard from bonsai folks from Vietnam is to let them dry out a bit. This will cause most of the leave to eventually turn yellow and fall off. Resume watering after the dry out period... in about 15 days... the tree will start flowering. This is big deal in Vietnamese Tet celebration.
Disclaimer - I haven't try it yet.
 
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