Italian Cypress

I must have it because it grows in Israel. I just got a couple from Forestfarm labeled Cupressus sempervirens var. sempervirens. It is not the same as the usual cultivars. On this one the branches are more horizontal and the foliage is feathery. Can anyone tell me about its bonsai potential?
Iris

bonsaisr wrote:I must have it because it grows in Israel. I just got a couple from Forestfarm labeled Cupressus sempervirens var. sempervirens. It is not the same as the usual cultivars. On this one the branches are more horizontal and the foliage is feathery. Can anyone tell me about its bonsai potential?
Iris

Iris,

you might check out this demonsration using Cupressus sempervirens.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z_T0aXO2Cs

I've never heard of "var. sempervirens" and can't find any references to it. All the vars. are now considered synonyms of the species. I know that while it is usually a very fastigiate growing tree it is somewhat variable in it's form where it grows naturally.

ta ta for now,
R

The term C. sempervirens var. sempervirens is not a real variety. It is a taxonomic device to indicate anything that isn't a named variety. In this case it probably means the wild form, but I don't know if that is the same as var. horizontalis. It seems to be a juvenile form. The new shoots are scaly/threadlike, but the twigs have needles on them. I will post a picture. I haven't found anything online that looks exactly like this.
Iris

Aha. Clarification from ForestFarm. These are seedlings and exhibit the juvenile foliage of the Cupressaceae. If I live long enough, they will develop the typical adult foliage. Hard to identify a frog when you are looking at a tadpole. I will post pictures when I get to it. Since they are not being used in a taxonomic discussion, they are simply labeled C. sempervirens.
Iris

Hi Iris

I've got two that I bought (I think) while still under the influence of anesthetic following a knee operation - still in the nursery bags 3 years on!

They grow like weeds and I suspect I had a problem with insufficient sun, recently saw a photo of a fine bonsai in this species and got some new motivation for less than perfect stock and chopped both quite severely.
With all the growth in 3 years the trunks never got much thicker (about 1.5cm diameter) so one is heading for a small "lightning strike" tree and the other one I wired up a new leader, planning to wire down the branches as soon as 'daylight "savings" time' gives me a gap.s
Profuse back-budding on both trees soon after any clean-up BTW.

Cheers
Gerhard

They may grow like weeds in SA, probably not here.

<<I've got two that I bought (I think) while still under the influence of anesthetic following a knee operation>>

Uh-oh I may have knee surgery shortly. I will have to be careful.
I know they need full sun. They will be out on my table in the yard.
I'm not too concerned about trunk thickness. The two of them will be staged as a "distant view" in a lace rock container.
I learned the hard way not to wire the branches. It is probably better to let them grow in the way they prefer. I just shear them. Of course that is in my conditions.
Iris

Hi Iris

From what I've read the wood is brittle, did you break branches wiring?

I've only wired up the new leader on one, set in less than 2 months and the wire was already biting quite badly - got away from me.
On the one tree the branches are naturally more horizontal, can't see any problem with that one, the 2nd one might be a problem.

Bonus is the trees are young and the branches still small, guess this is the best time to shape it, then just wait many years!

Global climate change for us has meant an ongoing record rainfall year, minimum temps getting down to only 10-15C, so even though it's autum getting on for winter everything is still growing, especially the pencil pines and my elms.

Cheers
Gerhard

GerhardGerber wrote:
From what I've read the wood is brittle, did you break branches wiring?

Gerhard

This was quite a few years ago. As I recall, it stressed the tree too much and it died. The one after that came down with incurable scale. Next two came potted in mud & died before I could do anything with them. I hope to work on these this weekend.
Iris

Hi Iris

With daylight savings time I get home when it's dark already, bad enough but now heading into winter the rain just keeps coming, making any work impossible....
I was hoping to wire the two tomorow, but now I've got a new problem........silly!

There's a spider that's been building the most intricate webs between the two trees, the rain destroys the web, the spider rebuilds!

Locally bonsai = black widow spiders, I hate them and they freak me out, but I love the various other spiders living in my trees, especially the little jumping/hunting spiders!

I'm struggling to believe it myself, but I don't feel like disturbing that spider! This morning coffee and cigarette in hand I was again amazed by his web, so what now?!?!?!?

I killed a monteray cypress during wiring, but I recently took some useless infomation floating in my brain and acyually USED it - put some hardware store copper wire and placed it on bundled news paper, set the whole lot alight.
Eye opener, made me feel stupid. I've got big hands, copper wire as-is is easy enough for ME to work with, the discovery was my trees like annealed wire, even if my hands don't!

Here are the pictures.
First one is the whole tree.



Not much to look at, is there?

Next picture is a close-up of the foliage. File it somewhere, in case another ignorant person is stuck with a baby cypress & is equally puzzled.



Happy Easter,
Iris

We know that you can't mix milk & meat. And ginseng ficus are tref (not permitted). But I need to know if it is permitted to mix different kinds of rock in one bonsai.
In 2000, I took a workshop with Dave Lowman where we planted a group of sweet acacia in a lace rock container. The acacias have since died, but I have the rock. I would like to plant the cypress in it, since the species in nature is found on rocky outcrops.



I hope to cement a stone fragment in front of the large foot that sticks out on the left.

My problem is that I would like to display it with a piece of Jerusalem stone, either in the container or next to the bonsai. Jerusalem stone is the quintessential rock of the Jerusalem area, and to a certain extent, the whole Israeli landscape. ("Jerusalem of Gold")
It is a yellow sandstone with a lot of iron deposits.



Would this combination offend the bonsai muses?
Iris

This question stems from a picture I found on the Internet. Would these toothpicks look better as two trees standing next to each other (as they usually grow), or with their bases together as a twin trunk?
Iris

I planted them & they look good in the lace rock. But they are just babies, with small root systems, so no pictures until I am sure they are growing well. Not knowing of anything else available, I am planning to use Sedum dasyphyllum as a ground cover. At least it is from the Mediterranean.
By the way, Cupressus sempervirens is not native to the Mediterranean area. It is from farther east, possibly Iran, and was introduced, probably as a timber tree as well as ornamental. It is not naturalized anywhere in the US, nor in Israel.
Iris

Here they are in in the lace rock planter. They seem to be growing very, very slowly. Dave from ForestFarm told me it takes about two years for them to outgrow the juvenile plumage. I pruned the top branches to preserve the lower ones.
Sorry about the shadows in the photo. We don't claim to be photographers.
Any other suggestions?
The Jerusalem stone I have is too big for this arrangement. I am not going to cut it up. I wish I could find someone who would mail me a small piece that I could use. The planting is intended as a memorial to my husband's cousin.
Iris