Spiraea Nipponica Snowmound

[Clorgan]

Starting a thread for this Spiraea Nipponica Snowmound. Purchased from my local garden centre. The trunk drew me in - usually any Spiraea I come across are just a bunch of stems/small trunks. Think this one has some decent girth and not a bad start to main branches. Pictures as purchased:



Had a quick dig for the nebari but that trunk seems to go quite far down and didn't want to break too many of those fine roots so I've covered back up. As you can see here there's a lot of larger roots mid way up the trunk:


So I've removed I think three branches that were crossing and some of the dead twigs. Photos after a little clean up:


So repot won't be until next Spring. For now I'm wondering whether to reduce/shorten branches or to leave be?

Oh also here's some of the flowers


Cheers for looking and in advance of any wisdom @Hartinez I'd love your input if you get chance please - seen you've got a lovely one!

 

[Hartinez]

Sweet score. These are great and spirea in general make great shohin. I it were mine I’d cut it back now! You could probably get away with reducing the roots a bit, but waiting till next spring is a good plan. But I’d chop hard now and let it flush out. Maybe spend a day or two picking a line or thinking up a style. I will say, so far mine is not healing over chops very well so keep that in mind when deciding wether to chop all the way to the trunk or leaving a stub. I’ll probably do some Uros on the chop sites of mine.

 

[Hartinez]

I’m def still trying to figure out the tendencies on these. I cut back pretty hard recently and some of the new growth is coming back in slower than others. I’ll snap a pic here in a bit.

 

[Hartinez]

I could see a great little sumo/informal broom style happening with yours.

 

[Clorgan]

Sweet score. These are great and spirea in general make great shohin. I it were mine I’d cut it back now! You could probably get away with reducing the roots a bit, but waiting till next spring is a good plan. But I’d chop hard now and let it flush out. Maybe spend a day or two picking a line or thinking up a style. I will say, so far mine is not healing over chops very well so keep that in mind when deciding wether to chop all the way to the trunk or leaving a stub. I’ll probably do some Uros on the chop sites of mine.

Thanks very much! Yeah I probably will cut back in the next few days, like you said though once I've had chance to have a think about styling. Don't want to rush it, and the bees are currently enjoying the flowers!

Oh just seen your other comments...
Would be great to see an update on yours, the bark on it is amazing

And yeah I initially thought sumo! But the trunk appears to go down quite far, bottled it and didn't get to the bottom though. So an informal broom might work better... There's just those roots mis way up the trunk to deal with.

Cheers for the input! I'll have a good think about it over the next few days

 

[Hartinez]

You can see the 3 branches lower down that are pushing growth but at a much slower rate.

 

[Hartinez]

If it were mine also, I’d dig down a bit from the top to seek out some quality surface roots. It could really give you direction on a proper front and in turn, direction on a style and how you want to chop.

 

[Clorgan]

You can see the 3 branches lower down that are pushing growth but at a much slower rate.
View attachment 379274

Very nice! At least the lower branches are showing some growth. Looking really good, roots look good too.

Think I'm gonna struggle root wise with mine. This photo shows the situation better - it's high roots on one half, none on the other. Not really sure what to do about that...

 

[Clorgan]

If it were mine also, I’d dig down a bit from the top to seek out some quality surface roots. It could really give you direction on a proper front and in turn, direction on a style and how you want to chop.

Did have a little go, but yeah as I said a bit cautious about damaging too many roots. I'm hoping there's a better root spread deeper down. But that'd mean removing higher roots from half of the trunk = a lot of scarring

 

[Clorgan]

Little upstate - budding well, still unsure on front/styling. Spring repot will hopefully make it clearer

 

[Clorgan]

So I tackled the roots!

Unfortunately started far too late in the day and darkness caught me, didn't have time to look at branches. So they've been left as is for now. Generally didn't spend as much time as I'd have liked on it, but oh well, live and learn.

It's gone in the raised bed