Another Cotoneaster

Following Wills current thread on his shohin Cotoneaster I thought I'd show one of mine, initially to show the differing flowers to Wills.
This tree gives a fantastic display of white flowers and berries every year.
Whilst everyone tells me that cotoneasters develop very quickly, this one has been very slow to develop the foliage pads to the top right of the tree, perhaps because it's using so much energy to flower and fruit.
I've considered removing the majority of flowers this year to see if this will generate more foliage development.



I've had this tree approximately 7 years but unfortunately I don't have any progression pictures to show.
I bought it as a lifted garden shrub from a landscape gardener friend to take along to a Kev Willson workshop.
When the workshop started I was told to strip off all the dead bark........as you can see from the second picture, this was all the bloody bark apart from a single lifeline.
The tree was planted at a different angle at the time,(the deadwood to the right were the roots buried below the soil).
As it was the wrong time of the year for messing about with the roots Kev made the best of a bad job and I bought the tree home to feed and water it.
At repotting time the following spring, I played around with the potting angle and suddenly I started to get excited about the trees future.



The lifeline is shown on pic 3, the problem I'm having with the tree is the preserving the deadwood where it meets the soil surface, I'm pondering with sitting the deadwood on rocks to avoid contact with the soil surface.



It's not a traditionally styled tree and won't be everyones cup of tea but seeing the flowers and berries every year is a joy to behold.

Cheers
John

Stunning tree John

Regards Chris

Nice tree John.
It's amazing the amount of variety there is among varieties of Cotoneaster.
I don't think I've seen that one before with the berries that orange colour.

Looks great John. Maybe if the deadwood was given a more decayed look with carving, you could get away with a space between the soil and the old wood?

Chris, Ian, Will
Thanks very much for your comments.

Will, I need to tackle it one way or another this year, unfortunately there's no real bulk to the deadwood where it sits on the soil and it's already very decayed, I think if I switched a dremmel on within 10 yards of the tree the deadwood would collapse in a pile of dust !

Hi John,
I believe that superglue is being used with some success on deadwood to preserve it and particularly on deciduous wood. I havn't used it myself yet but maybe someone can enlighten us or you might want to research further yourself.

Regards,
Andy

Andy Hardman wrote:Hi John,
I believe that superglue is being used with some success on deadwood to preserve it and particularly on deciduous wood. I havn't used it myself yet but maybe someone can enlighten us or you might want to research further yourself.

Regards,
Andy

Superglue? Never heard of that before. Who told you Andy, I am most interested.

will

I've used the very thin instant drying super glue successfully. Its some of best wood preservative I've found. apply easiest with a syringe. also great for re-attaching broken jin, adding deadwood or replacing dislodged bark.

best wishes, sam

Andy, Sam,

Many thanks for the information.
Do you apply lime sulphur and let it dry before using the super glue ?
When I've used wood hardeners before it has made the application of lime sulphur difficult in that it doesn't seem to soak into the wood after the hardener has been applied.
It may be that you don't have this problem with super glue ?
Thanks for any advice you can give.

Regards
John

apply lime sulphur first. the supper glue will render the wood much less absorbent. I'd suggest experimenting on some other wood first, so you are satisfied this is what you want to do.

best wishes, sam

john.

another alternative ( a bit un-traditional) would be to treat the wood with hardener first, than apply a wash of water soluble acrylic paint over the treated wood. this works well in our high humidity climate and is actually more durable than lime sulphur.

best wishes, sam

Sam, thanks very much for sharing this information.
The paint sounds like a good idea.
I'll let you know how things go.

Regards
John

More of the flowers have opened on my Cotoneaster, and I've added some shots of the deadwood that used to be the roots.
Apologies for the picture quality, these were quickies made on my mobile this morning as I wandered around the garden tending my flock.