Sassafras Albidum

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Reminder: it's the tea house, not particularly bonsai intended.

I own three sassafras albidum saplings, grown from seed. This tree is also known as gumbo file to my knowledge. The foliage seems to be a good replacement for lemon grass in cooking.

Five to six years ago I obtained some seeds and managed to germinate them at stupidly low rates (1%). I love the fall colors on this tree as well as its rarity in Europe. But the thing with rare plants is that there's little information about them. They are being sold as larger trees around here, but they're not popular enough that there is a lot of info about them.

Skip forward five years, and they're still at the same sapling stage as year one. They do leaf out and they do grow a little, but only just a little every year. A node or two.

If anyone has more information other than 'full sun, fast draining soil' then I'd be happy to hear it. Do they like a lot of nutrients for instance? How are these grown in native nurseries? Acid lovers? Or more alkaline? Anything will help.

I'm not growing these trees for bonsai per say, but since they do make suckers I'd like to keep them containerized. It seems that for some reason they don't like where they're at right now; lava rock mixed with peat soil. So I want to improve the conditions next spring to get some good growth on them.

Thanks in advance for tips and tricks!

 

[Jzack605]

They want to put out a deep tap root, so pot bound is not ideal.

What's your growing zone?

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

I'm in zone 7 and/or 8, depending on where the wind blows during the winter.

 

[Jzack605]

Should do well there; is it not possible to plant in the ground? I'd be willing to bet your issue is root related.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Our family blueberry farm is in southwest Michigan, roughly zone 6. When we were scouting property with the local Ag Extension Agent, he pointed out that Sassafras, especially when joined by a couple other indicator plants, is a tip off that you have acidic soils acceptable for blueberries. The farm is in an area where soil is primarily ancient sand dunes. Very rapidly draining soil, that is rather acidic. More acidic than what Satsuki azaleas would prefer. Sassafras can be found in soils from pH 4.0 thru about pH 6.0 with best growth in pH 4.5 to 5.5.

They do send out a tap root, but this is only necessary in sandy soils. They do also grow in clay and loam and peat soils, where water is more available. In heavy, wet soils they don't "need" the tap roots. For potted plant culture (even bonsai) you would remove the tap roots. But in all cases, the soil is an acidic soil. They are not true calcifuges, the way carnivorous plants are, but they can grow in very low mineral soils and in silica soils where few minerals are available. I would grow Sassafras in the same media that works for highbush blueberry.

For Nursery pots (not bonsai pots)
35 % - peat - Canadian peat, or Irish peat
60% - Fir bark, or pine bark - composted or fresh, doesn't matter much.
5% - hardwood sawdust
to the above mixture add up to an equal volume of perlite or pumice for improved drainage.

Also once a year top dress with roughly 15 ml by volume (roughly a tablespoon) of elemental sulfur powder intended as a soil acidifier. Per 4 liters of media, by volume. If you can not get the coarse grind for soil acidification, you can use the finer powder intended as a fungicide, but only use 5 ml per 4 liters, and re-apply every 4 months. The finer powder of fungicide sulfur dissolves more quickly than the somewhat coarse powder of the Soil Acidifier elemental sulfur. Hence a smaller dose more often for the fungicide grade.

For bonsai pots - I have not tried growing sassafras, it is a weed on the farm, but I have tried high bush blueberry in bonsai pots. I have used the above mix, and have the normal problems with the peat based soil compacting after repeated dry outs. You must keep a peat based soil moist, as when it dries, it compacts, then when re-wet, it does not expand. Dry it again and is compacts some more. After several cycles of wet to dry you can end up with a compact brick that no longer allows air to penetrate. But if kept consistently moist, and not allowed to dry to the point where it compacts, it can remain "fluffy" for a couple years.

In a bonsai pot I do use a lot more pumice. but the base mix is the nursery pot mix to which I have added pumice or Kanuma.

Japanese Kanuma alone is not acidic enough to keep high bush blueberries and by extrapolation Sassafras, happy. They both need a more acidic soil than what Kanuma will provide. To get the desired acidity, I would use the nursery mix.

Since you are in the Netherlands, for you bonsai mix for acid loving plants, if you can get that coarse, chunky, almost "Brown Coal" like grade of Germany sourced peat. That peat is ideal. It is chunky enough you can sift the bonsai mix just like one would a standard bonsai mix. You won't have the usual issues with compaction most peat based soils based on Irish or Canadian peat would give you. The peat and the fir bark as they decay, take the pH down even more than Kanuma would, and are what is needed for a blueberry soil.

Hope this helps.

Oh, on the farm Sassafras can be found in full sun, in an open field, or the tallest trees are forest edge, where they get full sun for half the day, or some are found growing more weakly in open forest. They dislike full shade. Roots are always deep enough to have constant moisture available. It is a blueberry farm, water is available year round.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

here is an early April 2017 shot of Sassafras as full size trees. The trees along the right side are almost all Sassafras, some are over 20 feet tall. They are on the right side of the photo, and make the canopy overhead. I'm sitting on a ATV, to the left are the blueberry rows. The camera is facing north.

Young sassafras is very rigid straight with long internodes and smooth bark. As it ages bark becomes quite coarse, which is nice. But branch structure as you can see is branches either go straight up, or out horizontally. The curves come when the weight of the branch bends the branch. The coarse twigs you see overhead are Sassafras. I think it could make a nice large scale bonsai, where the big leaves and coarse branching are not as big a problem. Not a candidate for shohin. I love the autumn colors.

 

[Jzack605]

They are awesome, awesome trees that are very under utilized.

The roots make great tea.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

As a kid, would often make the root tea when camping. Now the thought of digging is just too much a pain in the back.
I haven't used the leaves for file yet. I should, next time I make a gumbo or red beans and rice.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Gee, thanks @Leo in N E Illinois ! This is extremely helpful.
Right now they're in that brown coal like peat, mixed with lava rock. I'll be using that peat, pine bark and some coarser inorganics.

I did a little scouting on the roots and the pot is full of them; fat ropes. They don't seem to be forming taproots in my pots, so I think they adapt to the soil type quite well.

What surprises me is that they're in acidic soil, almost the right one, and in full sun, and they still don't perform well. The next soil change might solve that.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

It does sound like your soil is "pretty much right". I do not know why they do not thrive.

I did attempt a few times to get sassafras growing in pots over the years. I always had failure, but that was before the family bought the blueberry farm and learned about blueberry soils. Several friends from the Milwaukee Bonsai Society came up early spring 2018 & some 2019, and a couple guys dug up sassafras. Only one has a tree that survived the first summer, and as of now, it has survived 2 summers. The one that is having success, only uses organic fertilizers, (no nitrates) and collects rain water, so it is only occasional that he uses his medium-hard municipal water for his bonsai. (during our occasional 3 or 4 weeks droughts. It is very rare we go without rain more than 3 or 4 weeks.

I'm going to talk out of my hat - speculation. The following is a guess. Blueberries are mycorrhizal dependent, and in their acidic soils do not absorb nitrates in any form. They absorb nitrogen only in the form of amines, ammonia, and amino acids. They do not take up nitrates. In highly acidic soils nitrate are normally not found, but the ammonia, amines, and amino acids are found. The speculation is that sassafras might be similar to blueberries in their preference to take up nutrients. Perhaps if you only use organic, non-nitrate containing fertilizers you might have better success. This is speculation, but worth thinking about.

Another is what is the calcium content of the irrigation water you use? if your water is over 250 ppm total dissolved solids or over 175 mg/l as Calcium carbonate total alkalinity, you might be causing problems with your irrigation water. Try watering with only rain water, see if that makes a difference. Given the wider distribution of sassafras versus the narrow distribution of wild blueberries, I doubt this is the problem, but it is another thought.

Blueberries explants from tissue culture that we are bulking up in size to get them large enough that you can see the bushes from the seat of the tractor, definitely seem to improve when fluvic acid, humic acid and seaweed extract were added to their water-fertilizer program. The combo of seaweed-fulvic acid-humic acid definitely promotes mycorrhiza. If you have these on hand, try adding this at least once a month, or twice a month to your program. Might help the sassafras.

The commercial blueberry fertilizer we use on the farm is completely nitrate free, the nitrogen source is ammonium sulfate. It also supplements iron, manganese, and a number of the micro-nutrients.