Texas Sage

[onlyrey]

Found these couple of Texas Sage (Leucophyllum frutescens) at a local nursery here in St. Petersburg. These two are maybe around 1-1/2 trunks with a nice spread... a little crazy roots. They had been hit by the cold snap we had a few weeks ago, so they chopped them down a bit. Any tips on bonsaiing these? Thanks

 

[Vin]

I have a couple. They are tough to figure out and although I've had them about 10 years or so I have yet to obtain lasting desirable results. I'm at the about to give up point.

 

[AZbonsai]

I have one and it is real finiky! Hard to do traditional bonsai with ramification etc. Just kind of have to wing it and cut it till you like it or kill it.

 

[onlyrey]

Here is one of these two years after. @AZbonsai you are right, they are pretty leggy and I can't get them to flower, maybe they need a simulated drought at rightly timed to get them to flower. Somebody posted something about the Willow in Harry Potter and I remembered I had this guy, so it got a little haircut and reporting Today.

 

[Yule00]

Tradionally, they will only flower after natural rainfall.

 

[Srt8madness]

How hard can these be cut back, and best timing since they're evergreen? I need to cut back to pretty much the first pic, but the foliage is way out there. Will it die if I reduce?

 

[Srt8madness]

Bump on this

The trunk is actually a lot better than my cruddy picture suggests

 

[AZDesert_Bonsai]

I haven’t tried to do any formal bonsai work with one of these yet. I have several as landscape shrubs in my yard here in AZ. I’ve started experimenting with one of them to see how they grow. I was able to cut it back to stubs with no foliage in early march and it came back with no issues. They back bud from hard wood quite readily.

 

[Srt8madness]

Yup, I found the same! I cut back the plant I posted, even after the entire rootball because a fireant mound for a week or so, and it back budded all over. Very exciting.