Acacia burkei, Pierneef Style

...thanks Guifo, I got you the first time around.

Thanks Iris for the info, we lost the name to the Aussies. Bastards!
My trees grew up knowing that they are Acacias, if I tell them now, that they have become Senegalia , they will develope complexis and become biopolar! Like everyone else!

Andrew

Love and light
Andre

Hi Andre,

Lovely tree, I like the development of the canopy so far. It reminds me of the Acacia we have on our side which in growth habit resembles Acacia Tortillis (will try to get the specific name), here we have Acacia tortuosa and others.

Can you give some info on its development...was it collected or grown from seed, age, feeding cycle etc.

Anyway, your tree is beautiful and I'll look out for future pics showing its development.

Regards,
Nigel

For more information on growing the Senegalias, see Acacia Wanted. Presumably it will apply to your Jamaican species. Hank Miller grew Senegalias from seed. They grow very quickly and at four years old are ready to style. S. galpinii is very easy to train in the flat-top acacia style. Sotry som seeds.
Iris

Very nice tree! I have a few comments and suggestions. It is not always a good thing to cut the thorns off of an acacia. The new buds are located at the base of the thorns and can easily be damaged when the thorns are removed. As you are well aware during the growing season acacias grow very quickly and must be pruned back repeatedly. When pruning it is a good idea to cut back to the vicinity of one of the thorns. A small stub should be left which generally will die back to last thorn. The new growth which will develop from the bud at the base of the thorn will quite often come out at some angle. If this done repeatedly straight branches can be avoided and the zig zag shape seen in Pierneef's paintings can be acheived. The branches will also have good taper. Lastly one of the problems with acacias is they generally do not have good nebari (or for that matter any nebari). Unlike other species the roots only thicken up under ground. If you have good or potentially good rootage on an acacia don't hide it - flaunt it .
Regards
Hank
PS an acaia by any other name is still an acacia

Andre Beaurain wrote:thanks Daniel!

Your photo, is of the Best of all the Acacias, Acacia tortillis, the Flatcrown or Umbrella Thorn.

It occurs from ALL over Africa, the the most beautifull ones are in the Sinai Desert, the harsher the enviroment the more flatter and smaller these trees become.

I think there is a lesson to be learned in that .....emmmmm, no, its gone.

.....the harder you hit me, the more I become.....

Andre,
Is it the harsher conditions/climate that impacts the trees to grow this way or the giraffes eating all the lower vegetation lol.
Cheers Graham

I want your tree bru. Very nicely done.

I would leave the branch until you are 110% sure what you want to do with it. Easier to remove later than to regrow.

gman wrote:

Andre Beaurain wrote:thanks Daniel!

Andre,
Is it the harsher conditions/climate that impacts the trees to grow this way or the giraffes eating all the lower vegetation lol.
Cheers Graham

I think it is a combination of growth form and then ofcourse the trimming of the Giraffes. Acacia tortillis is also flat but very small, they get chomped from the top! Camels love them.

Acacias arn't the only flat top trees in Africa, there is the Albizia, Flatcrown, and there is the Flamboyant from Madacascar.

Love and light

Nigel Parke wrote:Hi Andre,

Lovely tree, I like the development of the canopy so far. It reminds me of the Acacia we have on our side which in growth habit resembles Acacia Tortillis (will try to get the specific name), here we have Acacia tortuosa and others.

Can you give some info on its development...was it collected or grown from seed, age, feeding cycle etc.

Anyway, your tree is beautiful and I'll look out for future pics showing its development.

Regards,
Nigel

Thanks Nigel. The tree is now 14 years old. It was bought as a broom in a Bonsai Nursery 8 years ago, and given to somebody as a gift form the Son-in-law, to the Mother of the Bride for a wedding gift. The Mother hated the Son. Well 3 years later they got Divorced, and the Mother felt that now se doesnt have to look after the hated Bonsai anymore, so she dropped it off here, at our Nursery, 5 years ago.

Since then the Giraffes had a go at it. Now its a Pierneef, and very happy.

Hm.. So.. I keep looking at this tree, and wonder why it is bothering me. Don't gt me wrong. I love this tree. Just something about that lowest branch..

Had a play with your tree. Removed the lower right branch. Bent the young branch in the crown down, grew it out for a year and creates the right-side of the canopy with it. Furthermore, I grew out the clipped branch on the left (Considered wiring it a bit steeper so it reaches the grown more quickly, but too many thorns on the tree), and creates some more canopy on the left. And of course, I took it out of the pot and placed it in the savannah, where it belongs.

What do you think of this future image?



For comparison:

Leatherback...mmmmmmmm looks great!!

I will definately consider it, the branch on the left that you say I must grow to reach the top canopy, was there in fact, I trimmed it back and wired ti down, now that it is in position, you want me to grow it back up again... the tree will think.... "o god, not again"! hihihihihihihihihihihihi
maybe I should remove that branch tooo, I think it will happen so in the future.

You similation is fantastic. Thank you.

Love and light

...so I considered it and realized that bending down the branches on such a small tree, breaks the Flatcrown ...if you follow me. So Leatherback wins and gets his way with me.

OO that didint sound right. Especially relating to someone called Leatherback.

The tree looks Much better, me thinks





Love and Light

Looking good Andre!

Hank Miller wrote:Very nice tree! I have a few comments and suggestions. It is not always a good thing to cut the thorns off of an acacia. The new buds are located at the base of the thorns and can easily be damaged when the thorns are removed. As you are well aware during the growing season acacias grow very quickly and must be pruned back repeatedly. When pruning it is a good idea to cut back to the vicinity of one of the thorns. A small stub should be left which generally will die back to last thorn. The new growth which will develop from the bud at the base of the thorn will quite often come out at some angle. If this done repeatedly straight branches can be avoided and the zig zag shape seen in Pierneef's paintings can be acheived. The branches will also have good taper. Lastly one of the problems with acacias is they generally do not have good nebari (or for that matter any nebari). Unlike other species the roots only thicken up under ground. If you have good or potentially good rootage on an acacia don't hide it - flaunt it .
Regards
Hank
PS an acaia by any other name is still an acacia

Hank, usually when we thorn prune these, we just clip off the bitey bits - about a millimetre of the tip, not the entire thorn. You are of course correct about taking too much off, and if you just nip the tip, it makes wiring a far less foul mouthed exercise! :-)

Cheers,

Andrew

Andre,

well designed tree, beautiful!

I just started looking our own Acacias and will keep an eye on you for growing techniques.
Thanks for posting.
Khaimraj

Thanks Andrew and many thanks Khaimraj.

Yes Iris, I can hear you......Senegalia burkei. Khaimraj, what is your Acacias being called now?

Looking like 01 old tree in the wild. Congratulation.

I like it Andrei. Great job!!!

What do you think the final pot will be? And just out of curiosity, what's the top dressing?

Have a great weekend!!!
Sam

Andre Beaurain wrote:
OO that didint sound right. Especially relating to someone called Leatherback.

The tree looks Much better, me thinks

I like what you have done with this.

By the way, just in case you have some mental image you do not need.. Leatherback comes from some work I did on a looooong time ago for earthwatch. I was a fieldassistent for some 4 months when I lived in Costa Rica: http://www.earthwatch.org/exped/paladino.html

Thanks for the compliment Vietnat

.....you're a very good person Leatherback, and I look at you with new eyes.

Love and light.

Thanks Sam. I think its still far off form his final pot.....I think all my trees are far off. Like Dorothy said the other day, I aslo used to plant my trees in expenisve pots very early. and after the first storm or Chicken jumping on the Bonsai tables, or the bloody Cape Mongoose that Meditate weekely in die Bonsai Temple , I realized that the cheaper the pot the better. My One and only designer pot lives on a shelve now.

I havnt thought about the new pot for this tree, what do you suggest?

HI Andre,

Why a pot? I would consider a slab for this one.. A nice hilltop-tree?

Update....



Love and Light
ps Can you see the Continent of Africa in the Branches..

Horrible tree Andre. I just cannot stand it. Looking at it over the internet.
(And realizing it will never sit in my garden )

Will it be at Bonsai Africa this year?

Impressive tree Andre. I love a Pierneef style and this is very well done. Not easy to achieve.

Yeah the damn bureaucrats that gave Acacia to Aussie pees me off big time. Its a disgrace I think. To me its a very personal thing. I love and adore Acacias. I sometimes wonder if they even know what an Acacia looks like. The word Acacia means a tree with a thorn. No Aussie Acacias has thorns. African Acacias sets the standard of what a thorn tree should be like, and they change the name to something that is basically non descriptive.
I'm not knocking any other country's Acacias. I'm saying the word Acacia IS Africa and Africa IS Acacia. When you hear the word Acacia you think of Africa.... !!!

Nice one Baba! I just chopped my galpinii....lets hope one day will reach your standards.

Looking great Andre.