Potentilla, how to train/prune for ramifikation

Hi, I have several potentillas (or Dasiphora fruticosa as they seem to have renamed this plant) but I can't figure out how to prune them to create a compact and ramified growth. All they want to do is grow long straight shoots. Anyone know the secret to make them grow a bit more bonsai-friendly?

The name is back to Potentilla fruticosa. Try clipping the branches back to two nodes after they lengthen.
Iris

bonsaisr wrote:The name is back to Potentilla fruticosa. Try clipping the branches back to two nodes after they lengthen.
Iris

Thanks Iris,
Wikipedia still use the Dasiphora-genus, is the change back recent? Just curious, I've seen enough posts by you to know you're right about these things 


I'll trim back tonight. The shoots will still be 10-15 cm long but I prefer that over the 80 cm I have today...

Speaking for my ones in the UK, unless you want the flowers then this is a tree I treat more or less like a hedge and "trim" it every few weeks in the shape I want - in essence doing what Iris suggests but not really paying too much attention to numbers of internodes.  If you do want the flowers, then you would have to be a bit more circumspect in the pruning.  I work on the finer ramification in the winter.   It's kind of like Walter's hedge pruning method for me.

Üfiona wrote:Speaking for my ones in the UK, unless you want the flowers then this is a tree I treat more or less like a hedge and "trim" it every few weeks in the shape I want - in essence doing what Iris suggests but not really paying too much attention to numbers of internodes.  If you do want the flowers, then you would have to be a bit more circumspect in the pruning.  I work on the finer ramification in the winter.   It's kind of like Walter's hedge pruning method for me.

Update with before- and after pic of the first one. I might go with the Walter Pall hedgecutter method later but i really need to fix the basic branching first on these. Right now they are just trunk with (too many) long shoots.

Wikipedia is not an authority. If you want the correct name of a plant, go to the Plant List, http://www.theplantlist.org.
I would suggest you thin out those shoots. If you have fewer of them, they will thicken up & look more like branches.
Iris

bonsaisr wrote:Wikipedia is not an authority. If you want the correct name of a plant, go to the Plant List, http://www.theplantlist.org.
I would suggest you thin out those shoots. If you have fewer of them, they will thicken up & look more like branches.
Iris

Yeah I know but it's mostly right most times... I will thin out and post an update tomorrow. I really want to do it right now but it's soon midnight here and even the solstice won't light up the night sky here enough for shoot selection for a few more hours. Sun up is just 4 hours away but I'll be sleeping then . Thanks for helping!

If those were mine, I'd be thinning them out to only a few per main branch.  There are ones which are obviously pointing in the opposite direction to the main branches and I think there are ones pointing downwards.  Those are the ones I'd be concentrating on removing. I try to avoid having ones pointing straight upwards as well.

What sizes are those?

fiona wrote:If those were mine, I'd be thinning them out to only a few per main branch.  There are ones which are obviously pointing in the opposite direction to the main branches and I think there are ones pointing downwards.  Those are the ones I'd be concentrating on removing. I try to avoid having ones pointing straight upwards as well.

What sizes are those?

I hacked up all of them today. There is three larger ones and also a little one one that ground layered itself and is actually growing upside down. The big one to the left is mostly deadwood and got that way because of my experimentations with cutting back fresh growth. The other two I dug a year later and have let them grow mostly free since. I cut back the first one in this post much harder at collection day and I think that worked out well. It's a year ahead of the one to the right because of that hard(er) first pruning.

Before (added soda can for size reference):



After: