Producing back budding on Goji Berry...

Dav4

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In my brief experience owning one during the growing season, it seems to back bud whether I want it to or not. Since mine's been recently wired out and will be shown next month, I've been pretty judicious cutting back extensions before they pick up too much steam... read that as 3-4 inches long. I'll bet if you let those extensions grow out to 12-18 inches then cut back, the darn thing will explode with back budding. I've got several cuttings that have been heavily fed this spring that will get cut back like I described in a few weeks so I'll know more by later this summer.
 

Cadillactaste

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In my brief experience owning one during the growing season, it seems to back bud whether I want it to or not. Since mine's been recently wired out and will be shown next month, I've been pretty judicious cutting back extensions before they pick up too much steam... read that as 3-4 inches long. I'll bet if you let those extensions grow out to 12-18 inches then cut back, the darn thing will explode with back budding. I've got several cuttings that have been heavily fed this spring that will get cut back like I described in a few weeks so I'll know more by later this summer.
Thanks Dave! It's growing like a mad weed. Mine came with a rider in its tiny pot. But it seems many suckers have sprung up as well...I'm pondering letting them go and rooting them. But...I did toss wire on it the other day. Just because Scott Lee advised me to do it awhile ago. Judy second that it should just be wired now than later. Wanting to add some movement. Waiting to see if it stalls...or dies back from it. It wasn't hardened off branches. But...crunched a few times while bending. It's not sulked at all...but I feel it could be cut back harder. But...it was going as you say before cutting back. So maybe I will see something soon. Trying to envision how large to allow a Mame's canopy to be...if it's a cascade. Hm-mm and then, I wonder as a weed as it is...keeping it a Mame might be challenging. They sure are happy health weeds though.
 

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Thanks Dave! It's growing like a mad weed. Mine came with a rider in its tiny pot. But it seems many suckers have sprung up as well...I'm pondering letting them go and rooting them. But...I did toss wire on it the other day. Just because Scott Lee advised me to do it awhile ago. Judy second that it should just be wired now than later. Wanting to add some movement. Waiting to see if it stalls...or dies back from it. It wasn't hardened off branches. But...crunched a few times while bending. It's not sulked at all...but I feel it could be cut back harder. But...it was going as you say before cutting back. So maybe I will see something soon. Trying to envision how large to allow a Mame's canopy to be...if it's a cascade. Hm-mm and then, I wonder as a weed as it is...keeping it a Mame might be challenging. They sure are happy health weeds though.

Yeah it produces suckers like mad. I dug up one which I had in my garden for almost 10 years last autumn - the leaves had some fungal disease for 3 seasons. I cut it back harshly: left maybe 30cm of height, it's got diameter of 7-8 cm. It still had green leaves, I cut away all branches and put it into ground. It was cold winter and almost all of the bark died - only thin strip left alive. When I removed the dead bark there was really nice deadwood. But when it woke up this spring (I didn't hope for that much) it started to grow like crazy pushing new branches from live tissue and roots. I'll post photo tomorrow.

But what I wanted to say is this: now I am getting suckers up to 2 meters from where the plant originally grew. It roots really easy - I remember that longer branches that touched the ground rooted after few weeks. So getting cuttings get roots should be really really easy. I am planning to transplant those suckers left in the garden somewhere, let them grow freely and cut them heavily each year or two. What is also important if you want something out of it you need to remove side branches and build a trunk. Otherwise it grows as bush: many thin trunks.
 
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Cadillactaste

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Can you post a picture of your Goji? Are they also called wolfberry?

Yes, also known as wolf berry.
It's a stick in the pot...nothing to look at just yet. I'm assuming a cutting of sorts when I bought it. I heard Scott Lee feels it takes a good 5-8 years to be something if I recall. So...yeah, it's a mad weed.

Took one branch back to thicken that I will encorperate as a root in the exposed root look. The tiny pot is mad with their growing like weeds.

It arrived looking like so...
image.jpg

image.jpg

Wired the chosen exposed root. Leaving the others to just grow like mad. As you can see...they take up a good part of the pot.

image.jpg
 

AZbonsai

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Thanks I appreciate it. I am trying to identify a plant and I think I can cross wolfberry of the list even though that is what the nursery said it was...o_O
 

Adair M

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Darlene, your wiring is better. But...

You said you heard some cracking when you bent it. If you look, you will see that the places you chose to bend has the wire on the inside of the curve. Oh, sure, it will bend if you do that, but it's also likely to bend too much and crack and break!

When you bend, bend so that there is wire on the OUTSIDE of the curve. This helps support the branch and keeps you from overbending. Note that as you are applying the wire, if you know of a place where you want to bend the branch a certain way, make sure to apply the wire so that the wire will be on the outside of your planned curve.

Also, your coils were too spaced out. The wire runs along the branch too far. It's hard to have wire on the outside of a curve when it runs along the branch like that. You don't want it yo look like a coiled spring, but to support the kind of curved you tried to make, you needed to wrap around about twice as often as you did.

There is more to wiring a tree than "tossing wire on it". I know that you use that as a figure of speech, however, I think that if you took wiring more seriously, your bonsai skills (and your bonsai) would improve.

Boon is famous for saying "Bonsai is wiring, and wiring is bonsai". I can assure you he does not consider wiring as a trivial activity.

And not just Boon. Mauro is famous for saying, "Your wiring is sheeta!" Lol!!!

Wiring isn't hard, once you get the hang of it, but it does take practice. Your tree was telling you with it's "cracks", that you need more practice!
 

Cadillactaste

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Apparently...I misplaced my thinner wire. The branches are thin and thus...I didn't coil overly tight. Trying to compensate from using to thick of wire. This needed wired a long time ago from what Scott said. So I hastily did it. Before the branches no longer were flexible. I'm surprised it's not sulked or died back to be honest. Though it is still early in the game.I felt for sure that I would have to regrow everything, I almost chopped everything off and said heck with it grow me some more and I will wire at the appropriate time. But...decided to see if I could find a direction. And if so...at least know where to take the new growth next time I wired...and buy some thinner wire. I think I accidently tossed out a box of my thinner wire sadly.

But your mentioning wire and how it bends...explains what happened. Thanks @Adair M ...thing was...I had no direction. Flew by the seat of my pants for direction as the wind blew. Not the best direction to take. But, it's what I did. Thinking I will just do a redo if the branches snap. I wired far to late in the game to be honest...is what I was told.

But I do so appreciate your taking the time to express why I heard what I heard...on such thin vines.
 

Cadillactaste

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Take Adair's advice people...not my flying by the seat of my pants. This Goji was an impulse buy because I admired Judy's...and for the exposed root. I had no direction as it set in my bench. But felt I needed to do something...with full expecting to have to remove my work with wiring to late. Thus...the time I spent on it wasn't with care. As Adair pointed out...this tree's savings grace is that it's an invasive weed...and I felt no real connection with it as of yet. I am hoping the contest will bring this piece into a new light in my eyes.
 

Adair M

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Apparently...I misplaced my thinner wire. The branches are thin and thus...I didn't coil overly tight. Trying to compensate from using to thick of wire. This needed wired a long time ago from what Scott said. So I hastily did it. Before the branches no longer were flexible. I'm surprised it's not sulked or died back to be honest. Though it is still early in the game.I felt for sure that I would have to regrow everything, I almost chopped everything off and said heck with it grow me some more and I will wire at the appropriate time. But...decided to see if I could find a direction. And if so...at least know where to take the new growth next time I wired...and buy some thinner wire. I think I accidently tossed out a box of my thinner wire sadly.

But your mentioning wire and how it bends...explains what happened. Thanks @Adair M ...thing was...I had no direction. Flew by the seat of my pants for direction as the wind blew. Not the best direction to take. But, it's what I did. Thinking I will just do a redo if the branches snap. I wired far to late in the game to be honest...is what I was told.

But I do so appreciate your taking the time to express why I heard what I heard...on such thin vines.
No, you just need to learn how to "spin" the wire on. If you're like most people, you think you have to guide the wire on with the index finger of your dominant hand, right next to the branch being wired.

That's not the best way.

Your non-dominant hand holds the anchor point with the branch and wire together, while your dominant hand (the one applying the wire) should hold the wire about 5 or 6 inches away. And should "spin " the wire on. As the wire gets spun around, the non-dominant hand moves up to hold the wire and branch together. Meanwhile, you're spinning the wire. It's amazing how quickly it can be one once you get the hang of it, and you don't press the wire onto the branch. It just sort of "happens".

I've been fortunate to be able to watch guys who are really good wire trees. It would be hard to learn how to do it properly from a book.
 

Carol 83

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No, you just need to learn how to "spin" the wire on. If you're like most people, you think you have to guide the wire on with the index finger of your dominant hand, right next to the branch being wired.

That's not the best way.

Your non-dominant hand holds the anchor point with the branch and wire together, while your dominant hand (the one applying the wire) should hold the wire about 5 or 6 inches away. And should "spin " the wire on. As the wire gets spun around, the non-dominant hand moves up to hold the wire and branch together. Meanwhile, you're spinning the wire. It's amazing how quickly it can be one once you get the hang of it, and you don't press the wire onto the branch. It just sort of "happens".

I've been fortunate to be able to watch guys who are really good wire trees. It would be hard to learn how to do it properly from a book.
I took a screen shot of that for reference. Thanks
 

Cadillactaste

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No, you just need to learn how to "spin" the wire on. If you're like most people, you think you have to guide the wire on with the index finger of your dominant hand, right next to the branch being wired.

That's not the best way.

Your non-dominant hand holds the anchor point with the branch and wire together, while your dominant hand (the one applying the wire) should hold the wire about 5 or 6 inches away. And should "spin " the wire on. As the wire gets spun around, the non-dominant hand moves up to hold the wire and branch together. Meanwhile, you're spinning the wire. It's amazing how quickly it can be one once you get the hang of it, and you don't press the wire onto the branch. It just sort of "happens".

I've been fortunate to be able to watch guys who are really good wire trees. It would be hard to learn how to do it properly from a book.


Ahhh yes, you nailed it Adair. Maybe someone can show a video of one just wiring...? I don't trust YouTube any longer with as much videos are posted not all are doing it correctly. Sounds very...hypnotizing in the way it would go on so smoothly. I would love to see it applied for certain in the technique you mention.
 

R3x

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Here's few photos I snapped when I got home today. I had been pruning away most of side branches away for the most part of the plant life - it only had one major split which I removed in autumn to get a single trunk. You can see the remains of that on one in the last photo - I'll carve that later to better fuse with the trunk (will do the same for the major cut on top). For better idea of the size of the tree - the pot is approximately 40cm in diameter.

When repotting I cut away major part of the roots to fit into pot. Also removed all the roots going down. The tree is screwed to a square piece of wood 10cmx10cm of 2cm thickness in the bottom of the pot to gain some stability. It grows like crazy: I already removed like 20 suckers growing from roots and every few days new ones appear. Maybe I'll let them grow to thicken the roots and expose them later. I do not wire the young shoots now. They seem very brittle and are easily torn off. So I guess I'll wait a bit for that. Otherwise it seems a nice plant for bonsai - quickly growing, small flowers and fruits, you can manage small leaves, easily backbuds, nice deadwood.
IMG_20170531_1749454.jpg IMG_20170531_1748527.jpg IMG_20170531_1749130.jpg IMG_20170531_1749317.jpg
 

Adair M

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Ahhh yes, you nailed it Adair. Maybe someone can show a video of one just wiring...? I don't trust YouTube any longer with as much videos are posted not all are doing it correctly. Sounds very...hypnotizing in the way it would go on so smoothly. I would love to see it applied for certain in the technique you mention.
Wow!!!

You mean just because someone posts a video on the internet it doesn't make them an expert!

Who'd a thunk it?

I'll search around and see if I can find one.
 

Cadillactaste

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Wow!!!

You mean just because someone posts a video on the internet it doesn't make them an expert!

Who'd a thunk it?

I'll search around and see if I can find one.
Thanks Adair!!!

Lol I know right!?! Recall the "Epic Fail" video on ginkgo that I posted. Appreciate the time it will take to locate one Adair. I am interested in seeing it.
 

Adair M

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Ahhh yes, you nailed it Adair. Maybe someone can show a video of one just wiring...? I don't trust YouTube any longer with as much videos are posted not all are doing it correctly. Sounds very...hypnotizing in the way it would go on so smoothly. I would love to see it applied for certain in the technique you mention.
Ok, here's one. I have no idea who this dude is, but he knows how to wire!

Watch how his right hand spins the wire around the branch. His left hand holds the anchor, and moves up the branch as he goes.

 
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