massive crape myrtle

RyanFrye

I thought that I would share this massive crape myrtle I collect about two years ago before she leafs out. The first year I did nothing to it as far as pruning, I simply let it grow wild. This past year (2nd year) I cut it back hard twice and defoliated once. I know it sounds like a lot to do in one growing season, but here in central Florida we have a very long growing season and crape myrtles are extremely vigorous in our climate. The first cut backs were made to encourage basic branch growth and girth. By defoliating it I further encouraged ramification of smaller branches.

Now that I have a basic branch structure I plan to allow it to grow more than I cut in order to acheive thicker branches.

Here are some pics. Feel free to critique, virtualize, or whatever you feel it calls for

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midwestbonsai

That one is HUGE!
Good luck
-Paul

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rockm

I guess my question would be why are you defoliating when you are trying to achieve thicker branches. Defoliating is nice for almost finished trees, but it slows down growth considerably during the initial design phases.

This is a nice gnarly trunk that deserves nice gnarly thick branches to go with it. Since Crepe is such a fast grower, I'd look to allow the branches to grow wild for a year or two, prune them back hard. Then allow them to grow back for another year or so, building up thickness and directional character in the branches...

RyanFrye

I totally agree with you about the branches. They must be knarly and thick to match the character of the trunk.

I know defoliating isn't common practice for trees in development. The reason I defoliated last year was to encourage many points of growth for this year. When I cut it back hard either next year, or the following, I will have plenty of branchlets to choose from to improve "directional character". And then the process of growing out will start all over again from those points. I will repeat this process as many times as needed to aheive the thickness and "directional character" that I invision.

By the way, the branches that were developed last year from buds acheived an average thickness of 11/2" to 2", some more than that. And that's with cutting them back hard TWICE and defoliating late in the season.

Ryan

Aaron_K

Daaaaaaamn that's a big crepe! Someones gonna have a sore back in a few years with this one lol.

Keep us posted on the development of this tree.

All the best,

Aaron

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RyanFrye

Aaron, you're not kidding! I collected it by myself and housted it into that pot by myself after collection a few weeks later. It nearly gave me a hernia! I am definitely going to need some help when it's time to put this in a more suitable pot. I don't plan on selling this beast either, so when I am old and grey and it needs a repot I'll need to trick some overly eager youngster into doing it for me...hehe

Ryan

tx92578

wow....thats a monster(im jealous)...lol

mike_p

Ryan, I'll turn 74 next month, and am half broke down. However, you back your truck in my driveway with tree on board, then head for the local pub and down a few. When you return, the tree will be repotted. No help wanted. No help needed.
http://forum.bonsaitalk.com/f14/jus...059/index2.html

Mike

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RyanFrye

That's pretty cool Mike! no doubt I need to invest in getting one of your set-ups.