Baku's consolidated bougainvilleas progression thread

[Baku1875]

Update time, a neighbor who is doing a big addition/reconstruction to her house and needed to have big bougainvilleas pole sawwed substantially and disposed of. I got to keep several major chunkers this time, much larger than last year's cuttings.

Sapporo 12 oz can for scale (great price at costco! lol). The bigger ones are about the same diameter as the can! 80/20 perlite/cocopeat, on a few of them i stacked some pumice before sticking the cuttings in to benefit the core of the roots as they grow. Just hit them with some neem oil and a drop of castille soap, and I have been also spraying the base area with very lite dilution of liquid rooting hormone and they seem to have been coming along. Heat pad underneath, lights on top. Twice daily misting.

 

[Baku1875]

One of the smaller ones, but it has a nice structure to it. More attention to detail this time on anchoring with wire, some stones to help as well, and just going with nursery cans to these roots can run into spring time. Equinox is coming!

 

[Baku1875]

And my twisty informal upright barbara K, I carefully carved up that ugly reverse taper ball at the pivot point of the first curve and cutpasted it last week. It's gonna be due for a heavy pruning, and perhaps taking something off the top to use for a future mame bougie.

 

[Baku1875]

Big bougies survived, widest trunk from left to right, middle one is about the size of a 12 oz can. healthy flush of leaves, and the bigger one flowered.

 

[Baku1875]

The bigger one's trunk. Going to saw off the nub branches later on

 

[Baku1875]

 

[Baku1875]

A thin barbara karst red cutting from last year, rootbound in the training pot and blooming like crazy

 

[Baku1875]

Purple bougie, one of the smaller ones from last year, it got accidentally kicked over last year but recovered and it turned into an interesting root flare, starting to look healthy.


Rear angle

 

[Baku1875]

did some heavy pruning on this one, I want to build some girth and nebari and get some healing from here forward. Future peak will probably be just after the 2nd curve.


My barbara karst air layer from 2022, did major chops, going to be tending after that wound to get it to close in the next few years. Nebari is looking a lot better, it's about to time to get back budding and see if I can make it into a decent shohin sized bougie. All pumice and organic fert accumulation, etc, moss.

 

[Baku1875]

 

[Baku1875]

 

[Baku1875]

A little bendy barbara karst that I rooted last november when a contractor accidentally broke a branch off my big one. turned into a nice tree, filled this net pot to the bottom.


sphagnum bottom for water insurance. roots pouring thru. For the extreme temps that direct sun delivers, it's a decent way to maintain prebonsai without 4x waterings daily.

 

[LuZiKui]

Awesome growth! Wild how much root mass and root flare you're getting on these. Thanks for keeping the thread going, my bougie shrubs are pushing buds right now so you've inspired me to take some more cuttings and try some of your methods.

 

[Baku1875]

Awesome growth! Wild how much root mass and root flare you're getting on these. Thanks for keeping the thread going, my bougie shrubs are pushing buds right now so you've inspired me to take some more cuttings and try some of your methods.

I'm brainstorming as experiments go awry or succeed and updating the thread motivates me to do more work on the experiments lol

baffled as to why I got so much moss growth especially on the 100% pumice (barbara karst from 2022 in the rectangular bonsai pot). I'm going to have to carefully pluck out the moss because I dont want it to mess with the trunk and bark health. I'm considering doing rootwork on it again soon as well, but first I want it to recover from the chops and get more leaves.

I'm surprised at how well the 5 bigger ones rooted, most of them have filled the nursery cans already and I planted them about 2 months ago. Instead of using the greenhouse like last year, I decided to use a clear plastic painter's sheet roll and made makeshift tents with some holes so I can mist them, had them huddled up on a heating pad with two cheap LED floodlights. More perlite than cocopeat, slightly different mix on each because I was in a hurry, and I used that aluminum wire to secure them as tightly as possible.

Before I planted the cuttings, I put them all in a bucket with a light concentration of bonide root&grow liquid hormone in water just 2 inches deep for about 12 hours. After planting them, I would lightly mist the soil every few days with the liquid hormone dilution until they really got going with the buds and shoots. I'm not sure if this was an 'x factor', perhaps it helped improve the odds and rate of successful rooting.

A month ago we had a wave of aphids followed by spider mites as we had an odd shift from cooler temps and rain to dry heat. Bougies dropped their flowers and had very few healthy leaves. After dousing them every other day with neem oil/castilian soap mix for 2 weeks in a row, the issue disappeared and I got some nice growth since then.

The next thing I want to try this season is grafting new colors to make blended trees. I want to try to get a white pink branch on the red barbara karst that is in the bonsai pot, and gold onto a few of the purples.

 

[Baku1875]

Alright update on one of last year's, the 'slingshot' bougie.


Before

And After.....

 

[Baku1875]

Repotting process on slingshot bougie



cleaned up


Chopsticked and raked a bit, a nice rinse. Leca mixed in seemed to have helped prevent percolation loss, now nice and entangled. Tried to keep as much of it in there.

 

[Baku1875]

Before adding the top layer of spag/perlite to cover the nebari a bit. The downward slope on the left has some nice roots but they drop right off (it was the low side, now that the tree is upright it can develop on that end more).

Later on when they grow out a bit I will elevate the planting level to show that end more. This was before I filled up that zone.

 

[Baku1875]

 

[Baku1875]

Filled up



Angles

 

[Baku1875]

Chunky Bougie 2 from 2023



The pigmentation is off, it might have aphids or something?



Other side



Continuing to develop the lower branches and keeping the top under control.