Callistemon

Many hospitals in Australia give you an Australian native tree in a seedling tube as you leave hospital with a newborn baby. The idea being that you go home and plant the tree in your garden watching the tree grow as your baby does.
Of course I had to turn my sons into Bonsai
My son is now 5 1/2 years old. I grew this out in the ground for a couple of years then a grow pot fora couple of years and it has been in a bonsai pot for about 6 months.
Still got a long way to go but so has my son

Brett, coming along nicely. This specie is very good for bonsai. Greedy and grow fast. Beautiful bark and flowers. Hardy as well. Which variety of bottlebrush is yours ?

Cheers.

CJ
http://newzealandteatreebonsai.blogspot.com/

Thanks CJ,
Not sure of the exact species? It is funny I am fanatical about classifying certain species such as my hornbeams but not so with others like this. I have guessed it is the common Captain Cook and not considered it further. Probably had the species tag when I got it but I am mostly disorganised with seedling stock
It has not flowered for me yet.Not sure if that is age or the way I have pruned.

Brett, most of my Callistemons are dug and they flower in Spring. You can see the flower buds shooting out. So the time and indications to stop prunning if u want flower is clear. I only have one undig Callistemon which seeded itself in my garden about 10 years ago and to date I still have not seen any flower from this fella. However, in the nursery u can see young Callistemons flowering profusely. So I am not sure on this flowering issue. It could be the specie as well.

Cheers and regards.

CJ
http://newzealandteatreebonsai.blogspot.com/

Brett Summers wrote:Thanks CJ,
Not sure of the exact species? It is funny I am fanatical about classifying certain species such as my hornbeams but not so with others like this. I have guessed it is the common Captain Cook and not considered it further. Probably had the species tag when I got it but I am mostly disorganised with seedling stock
It has not flowered for me yet.Not sure if that is age or the way I have pruned.

Brett,

A lovely begining for this young tree! I'll bet when it does flower it will be a stunner!!!! By the time your son is in College your tree will have a Phd in bonsai!!!!! The bark on that tree sure looks like C. viminalis but there are so many species of Callistemon it's difficult for this non-Aussie to tell. Here in the US I've only seen C. citrinus, C. rigidus and C. viminalis all of which seem to be good candidate bonsai material. It's good to know from you that they are heardy to bonsai culture. I'm working on a C. citrinus that I've had for a number of years and always been a bit leary to work on it very agressively. I have also wanted to try C. rigidus but can't seem to find any plants. Would Love to see more Australian Natives from you folks. Do you know if anyone is working with or tried any of the Hakea's? I've always wanted to try Hakea suaveolens (sweet Hakea) just because of it's amazing needle like foliage.

Randy

I am no Aussie native expert and had to look up Hakea. I now see that I did muck around with them in years past but didn't get anywhere. But I found a post on our Aussie site that shows we have at least one decent bonsai of this species.
http://www.ausbonsai.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4740
We are finding many of our natives can work very well in bonsai culture but we still get alot of failures as well. Some times certain "strains"(not sure the word) in the same family work well while others give much trouble in root disturbance.
I was not game to bare root this guy for some time as you may see the roots are not perfect. But with some advice I did practically bare root it before it went into this bonsai pot.
I had considered ground layer to fix but think I will be happy as is with continued work. I like the idea of penjing and the more precise Japanese styling combining and that is where I am heading with this at the moment.
I have had some issue with making the growth go where I want with this one since it was in a bonsai pot but I now think it needs more fertiliser being in a mostly inorganic mix that dries out several times a day.
It's Funny how our natives that grow in dry areas need LOTS of water in pot culture. Some put these trees in a water tray over Summer they need so much water but I rely on frequent watering.

Brett Summers wrote:I am no Aussie native expert and had to look up Hakea. I now see that I did muck around with them in years past but didn't get anywhere. But I found a post on our Aussie site that shows we have at least one decent bonsai of this species.
http://www.ausbonsai.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4740
We are finding many of our natives can work very well in bonsai culture but we still get alot of failures as well. Some times certain "strains"(not sure the word) in the same family work well while others give much trouble in root disturbance.
I was not game to bare root this guy for some time as you may see the roots are not perfect. But with some advice I did practically bare root it before it went into this bonsai pot.
I had considered ground layer to fix but think I will be happy as is with continued work. I like the idea of penjing and the more precise Japanese styling combining and that is where I am heading with this at the moment.
I have had some issue with making the growth go where I want with this one since it was in a bonsai pot but I now think it needs more fertiliser being in a mostly inorganic mix that dries out several times a day.
It's Funny how our natives that grow in dry areas need LOTS of water in pot culture. Some put these trees in a water tray over Summer they need so much water but I rely on frequent watering.

Brett,
Thanks for the info!!! It's nice to know that someone has had success with H. suaveolens. Now I'm going to have to make an all out effort to search for a plant of it here in the US. There seem to be many many many untried Australian natives for bonsai. As always it takes some dedicated people to spend the time and effort to give new material a good workout to see if they will perform. Keep up the effort and good work on your local materials as I for one will be watching with intrest.

Randy