How long would it take to thicken up a muscadine grape?

I really would like a muscadine bonsai, that had the gnarly trunk and craggy bark of the large native vines I see growing all over the place down here. I have access to a few smaller vines that are about 3/4 of an inch thick. How long do you think it would take to add an inch or more of thickness to one of them? Also, would any of you know whether they back bud well, and when the right time to collect them would be?

It will take a good long time...However,

Grapes will root very easily, branches 3 or 4 inches thick will root when put in good bonsai soil. I have a 5 inch thick Fox grape trunk that is nothing more than a rooted cutting growing out in a 5 gallon from last year.

best to cut them back in the fall (trunk chop) then harvest in the spring, try and get some nodes to bud before you dig them.
-Jay
Here she is last fall, the bottom 1/3 is below the soil. This is a rooted cutting after only 5 months.

drgonzo wrote:It will take a good long time...However,

Grapes will root very easily, branches 3 or 4 inches thick will root when put in good bonsai soil. I have a 5 inch thick Fox grape trunk that is nothing more than a rooted cutting growing out in a 5 gallon from last year.

best to cut them back in the fall (trunk chop) then harvest in the spring, try and get some nodes to bud before you dig them.
-Jay
Here she is last fall, the bottom 1/3 is below the soil. This is a rooted cutting after only 5 months.

Thanks. I really wish I could get my hands on some older native grapes, they're truly monsters. Unfortunately, They're not growing on my property, so i'll just have to make the smaller ones work. Anything that grows is fun to work with though.

Muscadines are pretty invasive and usually a nuisance for the owner. Look at local properties near you and see if you can find a thick trunked vine going up a tree, ask the owner if you can give them $20 for the trunk and in the process you'll remove the rest of the vine.

Worth a try.
-Jay

drgonzo wrote:Muscadines are pretty invasive and usually a nuisance for the owner. Look at local properties near you and see if you can find a thick trunked vine going up a tree, ask the owner if you can give them $20 for the trunk and in the process you'll remove the rest of the vine.

Worth a try.
-Jay

That sounds like a very good idea. They basically cover every vertical surface around where I live, so It probably wouldn't be super hard to find somebody looking to get rid of one.

Another question. I have a couple of blueberries that I picked up from Lowes. They're in the ground, hopefully doing their best to put on some berries. Anyway, do any of you know how fast they tend to put on trunk girth?

PeacefulAres wrote:Another question. I have a couple of blueberries that I picked up from Lowes. They're in the ground, hopefully doing their best to put on some berries. Anyway, do any of you know how fast they tend to put on trunk girth?

Not much trunk, they are shrubs.

Blueberries need to be harvested from the wild or from old orchards, to get believable trunk girth takes upwards of 20 years.
But they make a fine bonsai, and as they are shallow rooted they are an easy dig. Transplanted 6 myself today.
-jay

It may be that the blueberries in NY and the blueberries in SW Florida are different plants. In Florida we have what are called "High Bush Blueberries" and easily get a spindly five or six feet high. My understanding is that the blueberries up north are much lower growing??

I like that Fox grape, Jay. Looks to be a nice specimen once you get it fully into view.

Billy - There are some of each where I am in NC. We actually have some 'highbush' in our orchard that originate from one of the local mountains around here, which grow in the same fashion you describe. Over four or five feet pretty quickly, and little bitty black berries when the fruit comes on. Very tasty.

Billy M. Rhodes wrote:It may be that the blueberries in NY and the blueberries in SW Florida are different plants. In Florida we have what are called "High Bush Blueberries" and easily get a spindly five or six feet high. My understanding is that the blueberries up north are much lower growing??

We do grow different strains up here. Squat and much more bush like, also the old farmers used to shear them to keep the berries within reach and make it easier to throw a bird netting over everything in late summer. Those guys are the gold I pan for. I've seen some nice (usually double) trunk OLD blueberry bushes in my travels.
-jay

Jesse McMahon wrote:I like that Fox grape, Jay. Looks to be a nice specimen once you get it fully into view.

Thank you Jessie. Just under the soil the trunk splits into two heavy (2inch) thick roots, thats where I made the cut and the new roots from the cloning last year grew from that point. It gets planted out this year I'm excited to see how well she did down below!

My land is replete with monster grape vines such as this. I have a Parthenocissus about this size too that is also just one big rooted cutting from last year.

-Jay

We have a dozen blueberries growing in our little backyard orchard, mostly Vaccinium darrowii, southern highbush. A couple of years ago in a burst of power-hungery energy my lawn tractor mowed over one of them.

After humbly accepting the severe scolding from Jackie (the keeper of all things edible in our garden), I found the stump and dug it up. One branch, lying on the ground, had missed the mower blades. Here it is today, with two new trunks that have sprouted. It gave me 9 delicious blueberries last year!



The trunks seem to thicken reasonably well (you can see what it USED to have!). After blooming and, I hope, fruiting, I'll clip these (at least the two smaller ones) by abut 1/3.

On grapes, I dug one of the bigger ones several years ago in Florida. It never fattened at all in a pot. After about 10 years, I gave up on it.

JimLewis wrote: A couple of years ago in a burst of power-hungery energy my lawn tractor mowed over one of them.

Ah yes, one of those "accidents" Well honey, I guess I'm going to have to dig this one up! No point in leaving it in the yard...

I've seen some blueberry bushes with really large, gnarly bases on old farms. Some of them could probably make very interesting bonsai. Usually have great fall color as well...

coh wrote:Usually have great fall color as well...

Comparable to Korean Hornbeam in my opinion....display lasts a good few weeks. The fall color is what struck me most and put me on the hunt for a thick trunked specimen. They make a nice tree indeed.

I collected this High Bush Blueberry approx 12 years ago and planted it in the ground for at least 8 years and recollected it three years ago. I suspect it is old, perhaps 25-35 years old, maybe older. I collected two other landscape trees which are planted in the yard; when collected one was over ten feet tall, the other was 7 feet tall. I am sure they were over 40 years old. They were growing in an oak forest near a creek.



Trunk base is approx 2.5 inches (main trunk at base).Total nebari is approx 10 inches wide. Height of tree is approx 2 feet in this photo; I have reduced the top this year, its now 17 inches tall, and am looking for a better pot to display this tree. I grew a second small trunk on the left and it is growing well. It flowers and fruits every year; approx 30-40 per year. I feed it a lot of fertilizer and it responds well. Fall color is beautiful and the leaves do reduce. The branches are more brittle than hornbeam (different growth habit) and they do well with clip-and-grow techniques. There flowers are stunning IMHO and the bark dresses up well.

Best,
Todd

Fall color is beautiful

I wonder what they will do in Central/South Florida?