Species Spotlight: Myrtus communis

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Common Myrtle

Myrtus communis or True Myrtle is an evergreen shrub or small tree with dense foliage. The 2-inch lanceolate leaves are strongly scented when crushed. Myrtles have been cultivated for centuries and their native habitat is unknown.

Blooming Time: Summer. The ¾ inch white flowers are sweetly scented.

Culture: Myrtus communis do best in light shade to full sun. We use a soil mix consisting of 1 part peat moss to 2 parts loam to 1 part course sand or perlite. The plant is highly drought tolerant. The soil should be allowed to dry in-between waterings. Tip chlorosis is a problem if the soil does not drain well. Fertilize monthly during the growing season. Trim in early spring to keep a desired form.

Propagation: Myrtus communis are propagated by cuttings of partially ripened wood with a bottom temperature of 70° and by seed in spring.


The true mrytle is a bonsai lovers dream come true. It is a plant that tolerates drought conditions very well. It love and thrives , even prefers free draining soil conditions and loves potted conditions. It has lovely flowers in the summer for long periods of time, and finally finishes the fall with blue/black edible berries. It is an evergreen and the leaves reduce very well. It can be grown in a variety of forms, but prefers an upright form. The bark is that of its cousin the Crepe Mrytle. It has the same beautifully mottled skin on its trunk that shows many colors with an orange color under newly exfoliated bark.

The flowers are a real show in summer, being a creamy white color that look like fireworks exploding on the tree. The tree is a hymaphrodite having both male and female organs. All that is needed for flowers are a nice swarm of bees, which are easy due to the sweet smelling flowers. The leaves bear many medicinal purposes and have been used for centuries by many people of the Mediterranian area.

The plant does exhibit many fine attributes that make it suitable for bonsai. Below are a couple mrytle bonsai for review, as well as a photo of the flowers and leaves.

Attached Images

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OK, I know your starting to think, "what do I care about myrtle as bonsai". Well it has come to me that during the course of rebuilding a home devastated in a fire, the owners have decided that all the landscaping would have to be removed to make way for new landscaping. The present landscaping was badly damaged in the fire and much of it is dead or ruined beyond repair. I began to notice the large shrubs around the house and started to think I should take a closer look at what this home has to offer.

In my business I come across plants being removed all the time. To my dismay, many of the plants earmarked for removal are of inferior quality for bonsai and I never give them a second glance. I had checked out the landscaping early on for junipers, which can be cut back hard and regrown if they have some promise within a tangle of trunks. This yard had none , so I never really looked any further....till yesterday.

The large shrubs that were to be removed were two large common myrtles. They were about 6 feet tall and had a canopy about 10 feet across. After I went thru the plants from top to bottom, I decided that one of them, after making some selective trunk removals, would make a suitable bonsai.

Pictured below are the first photo's of what could soon become a masterpiece bonsai. The trunk is a full 9 inches across at the base and 6 inches across at the first bend. 3 inches across near the top, and only 20 inches tall. The tree will be cut down to 18 inches soon due to wanting to shorten the apex a little. The trunk has a nice curve at the soil line and a decent flare. The roots are barely decernable and the tree will be lacking a fine nebari for years. I did manage to get some fine feeder roots during removal.

I understand that I am jumping the gun a bit, and will have to tough out the next 5 weeks till I see signs of growth. I reduced the tree to a trunk, since mrytles push shoots from old wood very easily. I did keep a sucker like appendage coming straight up out of the trunk base with some green on it just to keep the sap moving up the trunk. With any luck I should have green shoots all over by Easter.

Best in bonsai, Al

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bonsaial1

Is this piece of raw stock to intimadating? I found this to be one of the best pieces of raw stock posted here in a long time and no comments good or bad.

Is this just too large for most to comprehend? For those of you that partake of Bonsai in Europe, there is a wonderful article , and in depth, on mrytus as bonsai. This may just be one of the most underused/estimated species available for bonsai.

I guess I will just have to put some branches and development into this wood to be appreciated.

Al

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Joanie

Lack of comment doesn't mean lack of appreciation! Heck, I'd drive up to your place and take this one off your hands at the drop of a hat!! It has a lot of promise!

Considering how quickly myrtle grows, how readily it buds back, and it's lovely flowers, this is really going to be nice if it lives. Sure, the nebari will take a while to build, but my myrtles (little piddly things compared to this!) quickly grow roots, and roots on their roots, if you don't watch them. You might even want to ground layer (would that be the right term?) the bottom for a root flare, if you think that it might work.

I love working on myrtles, and have quite a few. They are one of the nursery trees that are very inexpensive, have fairly good sized trunks even in a nursery pot, they will take a lot of abuse, they bud back as low as you want to cut them, and they are tolerant of dry conditions.

I cut one in a nursery pot from two feet down to about five inches, and it literally exploded with buds. The only problem seems to be choosing which shoots to use! They wire easily as long as they are getting a little mature, otherwise, they snap off pretty quickly.

Beautiful, Al!! Please show more pictures when it's leafing out.

Joanie

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In this second installment I dig myrtle no. 2. Since I did this this morning I was able to take my camera and capture some shots of the tree in the ground. The first myrtle was taken directly across the sidewalk from this one. They flanked each side of a door entering this home under construction.

The first couple shots show the tree in the ground. From this angle the actuall front of the tree cannot be seen. The front of the trunk is facing the house.

Attached Images

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Digging was fairly easy due to the 1/2 of rain we recieved yesterday. The large roots were cut with the sawzall, and the trunk was eased from the hole. I washed off the soil and took the remainder of the root ball down to the point of a stump end. The ring of roots near the surface of the trunk will be all thats needed to keep just a stump alive. As the buds start to break along the old wood, roots will push from the old wood of the trunk. It will be a race below and above the can this spring. Roots will be forming as fast as the upper trunk can push branches. This will build a very strong and compact root mass.

Attached Images

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I brought an assortment of large containers to plant the tree in. I decided on the fifteen gallon squat nursery can. I use a mixture of pure sand and 3/8 lava as a rooting medium. I have found that all the plants I have dug from the mountains or urban areas, ( California juniper, juniper, maples, pyracantha and myrtle) have responed well to pure sand. The roots that develop in this medium are fine and healthy.

One photo is at the digging site and the other is at home with the new myrtle along side its sister tree. It might be noted that the branches that I pruned of the new tree are longer than the branches I pruned off the first tree. I decided that I might try to carve the stubs on this tree and add some detail of harsher living and just see what that may look like. I can always cut it off flush later if I don't like it.

Attached Images

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Upon arriving home and placing the stump next to the other one, I noticed something I had not seen in a few weeks. The small sprout that I had retained on the first one had a bud at the end of the sprout. Then I noticed red buds all along the trunk in places. These are very good signs that the stump is waking up and will soon be pushing growth as the weather warms up.

My only regret is that I was sick much of the time in Feb. and did not dig this plant sooner. I would already be weeks ahead and maybe have buds pushing on this one too. Oh well whats another thirty days in this 6 year project!

Happy growing, Al

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Bruce Winter

I work mainly with this tree: http://tinyurl.com/kmsm8 , in the Myrtaceae family, and also saw the article in Bonsai Europe. The flowers are interesting in that there is almost no petal, in the case of the one here, no petals!