Chamaecyparis Hinoki - September a good time to thin?

[Japonicus]

That said, your winter sun is way more than 2%, feels like 40%! Use it!

I still say a dog peed on it.
I've done pretty good keeping the foliage close in, compared to how it goes for the average enthusiast
from what I've seen. I agree I am not as intimate with rhythm details as much as I should be, but dang it
I gotta be doin something right. The energy return this year has brought me to the point
where the foliage needs thinning, and that's a good thing daggummit. The tree is for all practical purposes
on an upswing, and healthy enough to need/require thinning.
@sorce you eluded to possibly removing active growth being a worse case scenario this time of year 1st go round/post.
Are you experienced with hinoki enough to say September (for me, in this instance) is good, or not good timing?
I know August is ok...Really that's the $1 question here isn't it?
Still say a dog peed on it doberman pincher ...and maybe when hinoki was thirsty too
Now that's worst case scenario besides dying off.Ya do something and the tree balks, makes ya ansy
especially when you don't know if that was the cause or not ya know?
My other the Lynns Golden hinoki never did this and it was kept even deeper in, underneath the sunroom
against the back wall as big as it is. Have a look. They don't need a bunch of light over Winter never has.
In fact, this has been on the North side of the house all year beside this maple with no work done on it.
Morning Sun through 11 or 12 noon. It needs repotting too. Might maybe try an air layer on it next year.

 

[sorce]

@sorce you eluded to possibly removing active growth being a worse case scenario this time of year 1st go round/post.
Are you experienced with hinoki enough to say September (for me, in this instance) is good, or not good timing?
I know August is ok...Really that's the $1 question here isn't it?

I have to say I still think your timing is fine, it's the energy return that I believe is the problem.

I don't know Hinoki, wish I did cuz then I still wouldn't have this question of when it grows. From the HH text it sounds like only in spring, like a spruce or a single flush pine. If that is the case, it will be an energy return problem, not timing.

If they do grow in fall, like Juniper or Deciduous trees, it can be both timing and return on energy. Falling back into that "removing active growth" thing.

No one pays attention to the trees rythyms. Well, except for JBP, everyone is privy to their timing, because its so written. Why we only consider the rythym of this tree is bey.... well no, its not beyond me, its because we are stupid!

Let the importance of a trees rythym slip into every other care sheet, and we will succeed and never have problems!

If the $1 question is timing. The $100 question is Energy return. Especially on a delicate tree like these.

Sorce

 

[Japonicus]

@sorce


North side of the house and 11 feet back under the sunroom...it was even the FIRST tree to go into Winter storage.....

Oh this was Winter 2019. Got cold enough to actually mulch. Both hinokis towards the back, this one in front of the bigger one.
You remember that shimpaku in the nursery pot from 2008 till this Spring? Well there it is in the very back near the right side.

This Winter was unusually warm and no need for mulch. My JWP in my avatar on the back wall to the left side.
This hinoki, that damage fading from red here, to that brown a month later in Feb.
It doesn't look especially venerable to dog traffic this past Winter does it? Cat, or other varmint perhaps, but just this one?
eh, next year will be better. It's the "law of attraction". It will happen
Oh, and if it were light issue, why the front side that got the most available light and the back looked fine? Not light issue. Ruled out.

 

[Japonicus]

Just insure good air movement between plants. ( not too tightly packed)

Yeh I need to work on that

 

[sorce]

Ruled out

I (as politely as a neighborly WVan), disagree.

But I also Agree.

It isn't a light issue from this year(pictured), this winter. It is a light issue from the previous year.

But technically, it's not a light issue, it's a lack of energy issue caused by lack of lighting.

Subtle, very very subtly different.

Sorce

 

[sorce]

If I can do anything to help you stop crawling around in there.....

Sorce

 

[Japonicus]

It isn't a light issue from this year(pictured), this winter. It is a light issue from the previous year.

Nah. 2019 was happy as a lark. It hasn't lost energy from the previous Winter years.
It keeps needing thinning, and dats a good thing

If I can do anything to help you stop crawling around in there.....

Sorce

Love ya man! LOL. Been down with my back as it is. need to be on my game for Christmas this year in the worst sort of way
and heeling all these into the ground isn't the way to accomplish that. I have 1/10 acre and no room elsewhere to Winter them.
I did break a nice jin last year stepping between them watering between freezes.
Not to argue, but relying on past horticultural experience, having this from a cutting, it's not light.
Somebody pissed on it

 

[sorce]

Somebody pissed on it

It was me! I wasn't even thinking you were in there intermittently to water! Holy Hell!

Have you seen the Mirai live where he talks about talking to the folks in MN about...aboot leaving trees out in winter?

Its what really opened my eyes to what winter is really about. That plus Walter leaves his trees just on the ground, not to mention my first few years of my own leaving things out to viscous third floor winds and freezes so froze the INSIDE of my windows had an inch of ice! Still Nothing died from it. I don't want this crazy shit to be in vain and keep you crawling around under there "protecting"...."PROTECTING", trees.

This matters because not only do I consider... no not just consider, KNOW, that whatever goes on around here climate-wise is worse than everywhere else. It can be proven with a count of freeze thaw cycles, since that, over and over, is said to be what causes damage. Everything plays into it being truthful. Everything! What else can be counted is the number of days within which "buds swell". My buds have "swelled" for 2 months! I am sincerely curious to know how long others' "bud swelling" period is. it is a rightful tell of what is worse. Screw It, drunk thread time!

So I'm not trying to say, OOOOO, I'm better cuz I have it so hard, or make excuses to why I don't have any good trees, its just that way.

I know for absolute sure winter has never killed any of my trees.

When I see folks in warmer climates, with less cold and less freeze thaw cycles protecting their trees more than I AND having problems that I don't, what is the happening?

It only makes sense that it is overprotection.

I mean, If there is no need to protect from -20F, what are we "protecting" from?

These are Humanisms.

Sorce

 

[Japonicus]

I mean, If there is no need to protect from -20F, what are we "protecting" from?

https://conifersociety.org/conifers/chamaecyparis-obtusa/

^ here. It's zone 6 I'm zone 6, it hit -18ºF in recent, it is a " "

Especially on a delicate tree like these.

There's no disputing Winter light is beneficial. It is.
I'm on top of a hill and Wintering faces North where the Polar Expresses and Arctic fronts follow the Jet Stream dips
though nothing as harsh as Windy City, we may have as many freeze thaw cycles, think Denver, just shorter Winter.
Anyway, as Frank said, these "delicate" trees as you put it, need wind protection from desiccation.
That's just part of the hinoki game, particularly in pots out of the ground.
Minnesota gets a lot of predictable snow too, where we do not. If we had longer lasting snow sorce, we would
have more insulation. We do not.

So I'm going to go on and say a 2nd flush is underway, albeit unlike a juniper, it is making a final push before Winter.

Here we are today, overcast nice breeze, gorgeous weekend on top.
Toggle these 2 thumbnails. This is the extent of the type of work I did today, and am performing this September.
No wire, that's next year. Little pinching, under cleaning where I should, leaving what I should ahead of next years work,
on the heels of this years progress and potting up. Happy with where it's headed going into 2021.

Back at that 1st thumbnail low centre branch...













So that thins that particular pad down, leaves growth inside of the cut to cut back to later, and lets light into that interior growth
that would otherwise die off and probably over Winter. If not Winter sooner than later for sure.
I will get a head start on this next year, and try thinning and wiring it in June.
I think the wire should stay on longer, and maybe not rotate any frawns or very few.

 

[Japonicus]

Front

Left

Right

Back

A little worse for the wear earlier, but shaking the off year off, and getting back in the game.
So I bought at least 5 more hinoki in the last year maybe 6. Hopefully they all perform as well as this gem has for me.
I'm sure it would've looked better with a black background, but will save that for another time.
Makes it pop.

 

[Forsoothe!]

There are too many factors involved in "how to kill trees" to isolate the cause of a given single event. We like to tie up loose ends and attribute events to specific factors. ..."I got sick last night, is must have been that hamburger was bad." Sometimes it's easy to isolate the factors and zero in on a suspect cause because there are so few possibilities, but with trees and death we often find that there are almost too many things going on and death is an end condition, -often we watch it go slowly and do things for the tree, doctoring that falls into the category of witch-doctoring prescribing aspirin when penicillin is needed. If the hamburger was the only thing you ate in 24 hours, that's makes it easy to correlate cause and effect. Killing trees usually takes longer. Evergreens add to the quandary because they can look pretty good right up to the moment you see that they are a funny color and reach out and touch it, and it's too crispy...

Contributing elements to tree poor growing/decline/death: (In reverse order because the cause precedes the event) (events occurring in Michigan which is like a nice Chicago) (They don't call Chi-town the windy city for nothing. Average W, NW, N, speeds 10 to 18 mph, zero humidity, 22°F, 60% cloudy Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar at the wrong end of the Alberta Clipper)

False Spring: spring is early, it is pleasant, sunny, warm, moist enough for buds to swell and begin to emerge. It gets cold, dark and rainy just when normal spring should arrive. Leading edges of flowers and leaves "rot" for lack of a better word, pollen matures slowly and rain interferes with pollen distribution, especially via wind-pollination and low temps limit bee activity. The balance of summer growth set back some amount.

Late Frosts: are bad enough, but Hard Freezes are worse.

Cool/Cloudy May and June: slows down first flush and pushes second flush/next year's bud building into a early autumn: poor spring growth follows.

Hot and Wet summer: Fungi abound, etc.

Late Summer Drought: interferes with second flush/bud building. Poor spring growth follows.

Wet Autumn/Early Freeze or Snow: trees not conditioned for winter.

Deep Cold Winter: under 10°F for weeks rather than a day or two. Usually accompanied by very low humidity and higher winds. Thinner twigs take a beating and twiggy trees lose too many buds, poor spring growth. Fleshy roots need more protection from deep cold (under 20°F) than coarse or fibrous roots because the contain more liquids and freeze at a higher temp, like 20°F.

Poor Snow Cover: snow is an insulator of the ground and conducts the heat of the earth to the atmosphere poorly, slowing down the soil temperature drops. 6" of snow in late Dec refreshed enough to stay white into late Feb works best. This, on top of a good mulch of leaves up to the nebari works wonders.

January Thaw too warm & too long: chill hours satisfied so growth starts too soon, etc.

Ice storms/Snow Loads: breaking branches, especially at crotches.

OK, those are 11 weather related factors for me. God only knows how many human factors somebody could list. And, if you have a combination of two contributing factors that can make it even more difficult to figure out Who Slapped John?

 

[Japonicus]

all this chit chat about what might have happened, and my style of Wintering of the tree
I feel like I should start a thread about whether September is a good time to thin or not

 

[Japonicus]

@Hartinez Bad time of day to take pics towards the Sun, but here are 5 of the 6 hinoki I have on my bench.



The ones on either side of the golden variety in the middle are Sekka hinoki, of which I repotted the right one this weekend.
The one in the 1g can on the right is also a golden variety, and is the same size of the one in the middle when I got it.

I thought I was going to lose a huge chunk of this one after wiring it, and I was not rough with it.
It bounced back well enough to get a better pot, but makes me hesitant to do work on it ya know?
No idea really what caused this. We also had a sudden early freeze that Fall IIRC.
There's one other in this thread that's probably too big and leggy for me to deal with post #21.
Not too big, but definitely leggier than it looks.

The 2 different videos by Bjorn in this thread I reference often prior to working on mine.
Particularly Bonsai @ 16 in Cornwall England.

 

[Hartinez]

@Hartinez Bad time of day to take pics towards the Sun, but here are 5 of the 6 hinoki I have on my bench.
View attachment 373796

View attachment 373797
The ones on either side of the golden variety in the middle are Sekka hinoki, of which I repotted the right one this weekend.
The one in the 1g can on the right is also a golden variety, and is the same size of the one in the middle when I got it.
View attachment 373798
I thought I was going to lose a huge chunk of this one after wiring it, and I was not rough with it.
It bounced back well enough to get a better pot, but makes me hesitant to do work on it ya know?
No idea really what caused this. We also had a sudden early freeze that Fall IIRC.
There's one other in this thread that's probably too big and leggy for me to deal with post #21.
Not too big, but definitely leggier than it looks.

The 2 different videos by Bjorn in this thread I reference often prior to working on mine.
Particularly Bonsai @ 16 in Cornwall England.

When you initially repotted this or all of these did you bare root?

here is the one I bought and am now regretting. I should have known there was a hidden graft. My lust for a Hinoki got the better of me and now I’m stuck with trying to make this the best it can be. Rookie mistake on my part.

 

[Forsoothe!]

all this chit chat about what might have happened, and my style of Wintering of the tree
I feel like I should start a thread about whether September is a good time to thin or not

I'll bite, this is a really deep and broad subject. When doing major wood work during autumn I expect that I am removing (some or a lot) of buds from next spring's growth and I do this specifically to reduce a tree and/or keep a tree compact. I remove outer buds/wood to force inner buds/wood. I expect a lot less growth in spring. This is half the job of keeping trees small, the other half being root reduction done in alternate years, usually in June when the canopy is mature and will help replace root losses.

I do more work in June, like denuding and tipping to force a new canopy of smaller leafs within about the same profile. That leaves more than enough time in my zone to refoliate and mature buds for next year before autumn/winter. Whether this precludes flowers next year I do not know because I don't do it on fancy flowering trees and haven't paid attention to trees not grown for flowering.

All flowering trees get major top work immediately following peak flowers, major root work in alternate years (as above).

I don't do much in spring.

How say all of you?

 

[Japonicus]

When you initially repotted this or all of these did you bare root?

here is the one I bought and am now regretting. I should have known there was a hidden graft. My lust for a Hinoki got the better of me and now I’m stuck with trying to make this the best it can be. Rookie mistake on my part.

Buddy I've never seen any red under tones in the 3 or 4 varieties I have, but I've never removed the bark either.
That looks almost as red as the roots on my yew.
If you say it is grafted I'll take your word for it, but I see nothing obvious except the bark difference
and the red wood. However the opposite side of the trunk appears to have bark on it, just not in the picture.
In time the lower trunk should bark up there where there is none now. I wouldn't worry about it.


I would have run this wire just under the root rather than on top of it, but may be nothing you can do about it now.
I will oftentimes cut through the handles of a plastic grocery bag, and cover the pot prior to foliage work
overlapping a 2nd one from the opposite side and tacking down with scraps of painters tape, to lessen the clean up effort
when done.

No I did not bare root any of these. I've bare rooted one juniper, and most recently a yew, nothing more in conifers.
I never HBR either. Looks like you've potted this one up, did you bare root it?

 

[Japonicus]

I'll bite, this is a really deep and broad subject. When doing major wood work during autumn I expect that I am removing (some or a lot) of buds from next spring's growth and I do this specifically to reduce a tree and/or keep a tree compact. I remove outer buds/wood to force inner buds/wood. I expect a lot less growth in spring. This is half the job of keeping trees small, the other half being root reduction done in alternate years, usually in June when the canopy is mature and will help replace root losses.

I do more work in June, like denuding and tipping to force a new canopy of smaller leafs within about the same profile. That leaves more than enough time in my zone to refoliate and mature buds for next year before autumn/winter. Whether this precludes flowers next year I do not know because I don't do it on fancy flowering trees and haven't paid attention to trees not grown for flowering.

All flowering trees get major top work immediately following peak flowers, major root work in alternate years (as above).

I don't do much in spring.

How say all of you?

That's fair, does this include hinoki in your collection?
I've never looked at hinoki as having buds, but figure there's a best time for maintenance.
Throughout the growing season does sound better than later in the year.

 

[Hartinez]

Buddy I've never seen any red under tones in the 3 or 4 varieties I have, but I've never removed the bark either.
That looks almost as red as the roots on my yew.
If you say it is grafted I'll take your word for it, but I see nothing obvious except the bark difference
and the red wood. However the opposite side of the trunk appears to have bark on it, just not in the picture.
In time the lower trunk should bark up there where there is none now. I wouldn't worry about it.

View attachment 373926
I would have run this wire just under the root rather than on top of it, but may be nothing you can do about it now.
I will oftentimes cut through the handles of a plastic grocery bag, and cover the pot prior to foliage work
overlapping a 2nd one from the opposite side and tacking down with scraps of painters tape, to lessen the clean up effort
when done.

No I did not bare root any of these. I've bare rooted one juniper, and most recently a yew, nothing more in conifers.
I never HBR either. Looks like you've potted this one up, did you bare root it?

Hmmmm. I can’t say for certain. But the clear difference in diameter from base to trunk seems to stark to be natural. Not sure what would cause that sudden transition otherwise? You may be right though as I am am green with this species. I’m hoping your eyes are correct though and thanks for the encouragement!

Yeah tie in could have been better, but it ended up that way to ensure that the tree was held solid in the flat.

 

[Japonicus]

seems to stark to be natural

You're probably right, and hopefully it transitions a little better with time, once in a pot that'll be it probably.
I see it better in the other pic that has more red in the base.
You ought to give a couple of these a go at it.

Dwarf green hinoki cypress for mame shohin bonsai tree 2" size multiple listing | eBay

Miniature dwarf Hinoki cypress for bonsai tree material. Beautiful deep green bushy foliage. Very slow growing natural compact shape. Best outdoors in part shade, but may also be grown indoors with enough bright light. This is a discounted price multiple listing and the plant shown in photos is...

www.ebay.com

They have better pricing on lots of 3
in other listings, and they are quite small. This is the size I started mine at, from a local garden centre
but I don't think I ever wired the trunk. I've ordered from her before. Healthy plants no issues.

 

[Forsoothe!]

That's fair, does this include hinoki in your collection?
I've never looked at hinoki as having buds, but figure there's a best time for maintenance.
Throughout the growing season does sound better than later in the year.

I don't know how to respond to that. Instead of removing a "bud" to increase inner "budding" and ramification, I remove the leading "fan?" at its origin in hopes of new fans being generated closer to the trunk. I do that early enough in the growing season, like June, for the response to happen before the tree goes dormant. Not necessarily to grow new fans, but to show new "buds". Does that make sense? One does not wait around for new growth after trimming a Hinoki.