Progression of a Casuarina

This collected Casuarina (2004) went from regrowing the branches twice, to having Ed Trout masterly styled it in a demo in 2008, me fiddeling with it again (did not finish the sharis yet) to eventually showing it yesterday at an informal event in a shopping mall !



And the little brother Casuarina was on stage too..

Haha! I forgot to add the pics on which the progression was based! Here we go:

This tree is making nice progress! I love the movement in the trunk

Thanks for sharing,
Rob

awesome dorothy; we love our cassa's down here.

Very nice tree. Thanks for sharing.

What do you use to treat the deadwood on casuarina?

Cosmos

I would hardly call it fiddling Dorothy!! You've improved it no end....Excellent!!

Hi Dorothy, i was there at that demo. it was an awesome demo an awesome tree. Ed like always did a beautiful job. I met you in our show in 2008, Bonsai Society of Miami. You gave me great feedback on my Escambron. Well nice to see the tree is doing great. Keep up the progress.

Hiram

Dorothy,

Beautiful job. That is a special tree, and I am anxious to see it in a couple more years. I have one suggestion that you may want to consider for the future. The tree as it is, is telling a story from the ground upward. The beautiful twisting shari at the base, that disappears around the side. The jin halfway up ( great carving by the way ), continues the story of a tree battling nature, winning it's battles, but showing the scars. I like the fact that you jinned the first branch on the left...great move ! Once you get good tertiary growth on the crown, and maybe a couple more strategic branches, you might want to consider creating a prominate jin in the crown itself, something more than the one on the left. Jin an entire branch all the way out to the ends, or jin just the ends of a couple of branches, or maybe a jinned apex. This would not "finish" the story that the tree is telling, but would show that the battle continues. I've seen your magic on juniper jins & sharis, and I think it would work great on this tree. And please ask Ernie to look out for an aussie pine like this for me !!!!

Best Wishes,
Ed

Hi Dorothy, really beautiful work. Congratulations. Best regards Pavel S.

Rob,

thank you! By the way I love your pottery, just beautiful!

Antonio,

thanks, do you have any pics of Casuarinas you can share?

Cosmos,

thanks, I use Woodhardener with or without prior limesulphur treatment. If I use limesulphur I buffer the wood in between applications. I don't know if it helps, but the wood seems to get extra dense by doing that.

Will,
thank you. I find your trees utmost inspiring and beautiful!

Hiram,

I agree, Ed's demos are always great and well attended, packed actually. He set the standards for Bonsai in Florida long time ago.
I fondly remember your tree, Hiram. Care to post a picture of your Escambron?

Ed!

I am glad you like my follow up on the tree, thank you.
The reason I took the branch off is actually twosided. Once, the branch did not seem to get any character like the other branches, it was just different. And the other reason is that I decided to go for a literati rather than a tall tree. Personal preference I guess.
You are right with the consistency of the story, I will try to integrate "a piece of the battle" in the upper area. The branch I took off would have been a candidate for it, but then again I would have had a tall tree; a jin is like half of a nagative space, not enough to ignore it.
By the way, I do have a near twin of this tree in training. However, it is only 10 inches tall.. Ernie will keep his eyes open and my shuffle ready.

Pavel,

thank you very much. I admire your work!

-dorothy

Dorothy this tree is Fantastic!
My first love is Literati as well.
Irene

irene_b wrote:Dorothy this tree is Fantastic!
My first love is Literati as well.
Irene

Thank you Irene. I am still working to finish the shari, especially the large one. It is supposed to disappear to the back of the tree meandering towards this natural shari:

Hi Dorothy

Excuse my ignorance but what do you mean when you say you buffer the wood in between applications of lime sulphur?

Jaco Kriek wrote:Hi Dorothy

Excuse my ignorance but what do you mean when you say you buffer the wood in between applications of lime sulphur?

Jaco,

I buffer (polish) the wood when the limesulphur has dried up and prior to the last coat. It is probably only psychological..

-dorothy

Hi Dorothy,

Just a quick question ... what do you use to buff the wood ? I'm picturing you with a shoe brush or

Norma

Norma wrote:Hi Dorothy,

Just a quick question ... what do you use to buff the wood ? I'm picturing you with a shoe brush or

Norma

Norma,

I use this:

Love the drawings Dorothy! Will you promise to photograph the progressive styling/ carving for us? Does the bark spiral naturally or will you have to take it slowly. I dont know this species at all.

I like the spiral shari - very dramatic. However, I was advised recently by several southeastern Asians that dead wood on a Casuarina is a no go as the long term survivability of the deadwood wood is not good. I have started to notice this on one of my Casuarina sharis so maybe you shari will end up as a hollow. At the recent ASPAC none of the wonderful Casuarina's had exposed sharis. Here is an example. No shari and no visible chop scar.

will baddeley wrote:Love the drawings Dorothy! Will you promise to photograph the progressive styling/ carving for us? Does the bark spiral naturally or will you have to take it slowly. I dont know this species at all.

Will,

I'll keep you posted with the progression. The bark on this particular specimen does indeed naturally twist. I just went slower as I was still in the planning process as to how to proceed with the shari(s) after I was informed about what Rob is saying.

Rob Kempinski wrote:I like the spiral shari - very dramatic. However, I was advised recently by several southeastern Asians that dead wood on a Casuarina is a no go as the long term survivability of the deadwood wood is not good. I have started to notice this on one of my Casuarina sharis so maybe you shari will end up as a hollow. At the recent ASPAC none of the wonderful Casuarina's had exposed sharis. Here is an example. No shari and no visible chop scar...

Rob,

Jose Louis told me the same thing some time ago. That was when I had already created the shari in the front of this tree. I then suspended the further progression until I would have a plan as to how best to preserve the deadwood and as to how to best "finish" the shari. For now I am applying multiple layers of limesulphur while buffering the suface each time. After the limesulphur I apply Woodhardener. I did this with the Torulosa and it is holding up very well ( white color keeps longer too).
I am not going to create more shari than neccessary on this Casuarina. One thing is for sure, if the deadwood on a Casuarina is not treated at all you can virtually watch it rotting away during rain season here in Florida.
Thanks for the info and the nice photograph, Rob.

-dorothy

Hi Dorothy, when you collected the Casuarina back in 2004, what mix did you use then and what mix do you use now. Did you leave branches with 'leaves' on. I lost 2 yamadori casuarinas by not leaving any leaves on, thinking that I would cut down on transpiration water losses. What is your experience on this regard. Thanks for sharing.

cosmos wrote:Hi Dorothy, when you collected the Casuarina back in 2004, what mix did you use then and what mix do you use now. Did you leave branches with 'leaves' on. I lost 2 yamadori casuarinas by not leaving any leaves on, thinking that I would cut down on transpiration water losses. What is your experience on this regard. Thanks for sharing.

Cosmos,

the first soil was dirt, firbark, sand and perlite (I don't use that mix anymore). Then in 2008 I transplanted the tree into Boon mix but I left the Akadama out.

I do wash the roots of collected Casuarinas during initial planting and place them now in pure lavarock. I try to save all fine roots and prune off only the bigger roots up to a feeder root. I then go through the stuff that falls off the roots during potting and collect all finer roots, chop them up and add them close to the rootball. I have collected about 30 trees and have only lost 2 little seedlings, which had only 1 root left after collecting.
When you collect Casuarinas, you need to save as many feederroots as you can, no need to cut them back at this time, just coil them up.

I always leave greens on the tree when planting. They like to be misted after collection. Also, I do only collect when they are pushing new growth, actually when they are shedding and ready to push new growth, which is in Spring and again in October in SW Florida.

And never transplant a Casuarina and wire limbs at the same time, the Casuarina despises that. Same goes for leaving wire on branches during cold spells, you may see some dieback up to losing a whole branch depending on the size of the tree.

-dorothy

Thanks Dorothy for sharing so much.
I have a casuarina and I want to create two new branches. Do you have any experience with grafting on casuarina.
Thank you
Cosmos

It's nice to know you remembered me and my tree. I sold that tree but I have a much nicer one that won tree of the year. The only thing is that I don't know how to post them through this forum. I am trying to find someone to teach me. As soon as I do, I will post them. Continue the amazing progress on your Bunjin.

hiram wrote: The only thing is that I don't know how to post them through this forum. I am trying to find someone to teach me. As soon as I do, I will post them. Continue the amazing progress on your Bunjin.

Hiram, please see Jim's tutorial HERE

Where I live, tropicals need to be brought indoors for the winter. Can a casuarina survive spending the winter in a sunny window, or under artificial light?