Deciduous Tree Development Questions: Bougainvillea and similiar

[cbrshadow23]

I'm wondering if there are any videos or good infographics or even classes that I can look into for developing deciduous trees.

I dug up and potted a couple bougainvilleas and another similar tree (Blue Potato Bush) recently and they're growing extremely well, but I'm botching the branch development part, I'm sure. I have a general idea of how I want the tree to look but I don't know how to get it there. They've been growing at a rate of over 1" per day, so it's easy to "get behind" on wiring or trimming if I neglect the tree at all.

I've posted some pictures below, but basically what I'm doing is:

New growth sprouts from the trunk
- I wire new growth so that primary branches have good movement

Growth gets long (24" - 36")
- I cut the growth back to 12"

Each primary branch gets 2-3 new branches sprouting from it
- I wire new growth to have lots of movement. Repeat.

I feel like if I keep doing this I'll just end up with a big mess, since I don't have a plan for shaping it the way I want the canopy to look.









Any advice or a link to a resource would be appreciated.

 

[Adair M]

That’s really not a deciduous tree as most would think of it. It’s a tropical.

 

[cbrshadow23]

That’s really not a deciduous tree as most would think of it. It’s a tropical.

Everything I've read is that they're deciduous if you have a dry season, which we do here in Northern California.
I don't want to get too far off topic though - I'm hoping to learn how to develop Bougainvillea and similar trees.

 

[Adair M]

Everything I've read is that they're deciduous if you have a dry season, which we do here in Northern California.
I don't want to get too far off topic though - I'm hoping to learn how to develop Bougainvillea and similar trees.

Sure, They’ll drop leaves, but they are native to more tropical climates. A hard frost will kill them.

 

[cbrshadow23]

Sure?

Nope I'm definitely not sure.
They do seasonally shed leaves here in California if the weather gets cold in winter.
From the Bougainvillea wiki page: "They are evergreen where rainfall occurs all year, or deciduous if there is a dry season"
There's similar information from other sites, but based on my original questions I'm clearly not an expert. I was told that to learn to develop Bougainvillea I need to know deciduous trees.

Any thoughts on the original questions? I'd hate to get into the weeds on whether Bougainvillea are deciduous or not at the cost of responses about developing branches.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

@cbrshadow23

Basically, you have it correct.

Let growth get long, then cut back.

Repeat.

You only collected this beast a few months ago. It has not even had a year to get established. It has really come a long way since you took the chain saw to the trunk in the ground. Be patient. It will be an ugly duckling for at least a couple years before it becomes a swan. Patience.

Each time you cut back the branches, the new growth should more than double the number of branches you have available for the next round. As each of those long stems you cut back should put out 2 or more branches. So the number of branches on your tree should be going up exponentially, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 etc. When you have 64 or more branches to choose from, you might be ready to think about styling. Until you have enough to choose from, this process seems pretty random, like its going nowhere. Once you pass the threshold of the minimum number of branches needed to have choices to choose from, it will suddenly make sense. You will see possibilities.

I would turn the "triangle of green" on your virtual upside down, and dome the top, no sharp points. Triangle shaped masses of foliage is a trait of conifers. Spruce & Fir tend to have triangular foliage. Broadleaf evergreen and deciduous trees tend to have shapes that are more like wine glasses, branches arch upwards and spread out, creating domes of foliage above the trunks.

Bougainvillea can be evergreen, if water, heat and sun are present. It can tolerate a dry spell, which it does by becoming deciduous, but it is not "obligated" to be deciduous, if conditions are good, it keeps growing. Its cold tolerance is only for a few degrees of frost. Best to protect it from frost. It will tolerate cold better if at the time it, the soil is dry and the leaves had dropped due to drought. Native range is Brazil, Argentina possibly as far west as Peru. (Wikipedia)

My suggestion would be to keep doing what you are doing. My only change would be to suggest that each time you cut the branches, cut successive segments shorter than the previous.
So the first time you cut the branches back, you cut them to 12 inches. When these 12 inch branches send out their new branches, let them get 36 inches long, then cut them back to 2/3rds of the 12 inches. Cut them to 8 inches. Then let the shoots on the 8 inch branches grow out to 36 inches long. THen cut these shoots to 2/3rds of 8 inches, which will be roughly 5.25 inches. And continue this cycle. By the time you are cutting back to 1 inch branches you will have well over 100 branches.

The reason for this is in nature, as trees make branches, the branches ramify, and the new branches are more slender and shorter, before they branch again.

At some point you will "see" possible trunk and branch lines, and you will have enough branches to choose from.

You have gotten a nice amount of growth for a tree that was essentially bare root stump just months ago. Hang in there, it will come along.

 

[cbrshadow23]

@cbrshadow23

Basically, you have it correct.

Let growth get long, then cut back.

Repeat.

You only collected this beast a few months ago. It has not even had a year to get established. It has really come a long way since you took the chain saw to the trunk in the ground. Be patient. It will be an ugly duckling for at least a couple years before it becomes a swan. Patience.

Each time you cut back the branches, the new growth should more than double the number of branches you have available for the next round. As each of those long stems you cut back should put out 2 or more branches. So the number of branches on your tree should be going up exponentially, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 etc. When you have 64 or more branches to choose from, you might be ready to think about styling. Until you have enough to choose from, this process seems pretty random, like its going nowhere. Once you pass the threshold of the minimum number of branches needed to have choices to choose from, it will suddenly make sense. You will see possibilities.

I would turn the "triangle of green" on your virtual upside down, and dome the top, no sharp points. Triangle shaped masses of foliage is a trait of conifers. Spruce & Fir tend to have triangular foliage. Broadleaf evergreen and deciduous trees tend to have shapes that are more like wine glasses, branches arch upwards and spread out, creating domes of foliage above the trunks.

Bougainvillea can be evergreen, if water, heat and sun are present. It can tolerate a dry spell, which it does by becoming deciduous, but it is not "obligated" to be deciduous, if conditions are good, it keeps growing. Its cold tolerance is only for a few degrees of frost. Best to protect it from frost. It will tolerate cold better if at the time it, the soil is dry and the leaves had dropped due to drought. Native range is Brazil, Argentina possibly as far west as Peru. (Wikipedia)

My suggestion would be to keep doing what you are doing. My only change would be to suggest that each time you cut the branches, cut successive segments shorter than the previous.
So the first time you cut the branches back, you cut them to 12 inches. When these 12 inch branches send out their new branches, let them get 36 inches long, then cut them back to 2/3rds of the 12 inches. Cut them to 8 inches. Then let the shoots on the 8 inch branches grow out to 36 inches long. THen cut these shoots to 2/3rds of 8 inches, which will be roughly 5.25 inches. And continue this cycle. By the time you are cutting back to 1 inch branches you will have well over 100 branches.

The reason for this is in nature, as trees make branches, the branches ramify, and the new branches are more slender and shorter, before they branch again.

At some point you will "see" possible trunk and branch lines, and you will have enough branches to choose from.

You have gotten a nice amount of growth for a tree that was essentially bare root stump just months ago. Hang in there, it will come along.

Thanks as always for such a detailed response. I bookmark these posts so that I can keep going back to read them.

My main concern isn't speeding things up necessarily, but I'm nervous about letting a branch grow in a bad direction and finding out a year or two later and having to chop all the progress away and start over. It sounds like right now I just need to keep at it and give it time.
Just a couple questions:

1) How much taller than top of the current stump should I expect the canopy to be? If I do the method you mention above (12", 8", 5.25", 3.5", 2.3", 1.5") it ends up as a pretty tall tree, assuming these all go upward. I can mitigate that by adding angles and such, correct?

2) Should I ever remove new branches that show up on the trunk? I keep seeing new sprouts wanting to pop up, sometimes right next to existing ones. Remove those?

3) I see some flowering coming in which is nice to see, but I've been removing those as I read somewhere that the plant uses a lot of energy to put out flowers and you'll get better growth if you remove. There's definitely no lack of growth (1-2" per day!) so should I bother removing those flowers?

Here's an example of what I'm doing on the branches. Does this look roughly correct?

Thanks again for all the help!

 

[leatherback]

With bougies, what I am learning it to yes, wire the young growth. But then let the branch extend a long way to build some wood on it. So I would not cut it too frequently. Let it set in place and get thicker. Then trim.

 

[BobbyLane]

if i was looking for a bougi i think these represent good value.

Search results for: 'bougainvillea'

Kaizen Bonsai are specialist suppliers of Bonsai tools, gifts and fertilizers accompanied by a huge archive of videos and information on Bonsai care

www.kaizenbonsai.com

bark quality on this is pretty epic

 

[cbrshadow23]

if i was looking for a bougi i think these represent good value.

Search results for: 'bougainvillea'

Kaizen Bonsai are specialist suppliers of Bonsai tools, gifts and fertilizers accompanied by a huge archive of videos and information on Bonsai care

www.kaizenbonsai.com

bark quality on this is pretty epic

We're fortunate in California to have these growing outdoors, so with a little searching/negotiation and elbow grease it's possible to dig up bougies with bark similar to what you pictured. I've dug up 4 of these now and 2 of them had nice bark like that.
This thread isn't about buying bougies, though

 

[BobbyLane]

We're fortunate in California to have these growing outdoors, so with a little searching/negotiation and elbow grease it's possible to dig up bougies with bark similar to what you pictured. I've dug up 4 of these now and 2 of them had nice bark like that.
This thread isn't about buying bougies, though

so you have good experience with the species then, maybe more than most.
seems like youre on a good path with wiring the shoots, letting grow then cutting them back. not sure why you think if you continue to do this the tree will end up a 'mess' as you put it. its for you to get in there and tidy it up from time to time, as in removing unwanted shoots, leggy shoots, shoots in crotches, shoots snaking back the wrong way etc youre aware of this part of building the structure right?

if not, maybe this will help somewhat

 

[cbrshadow23]

so you have good experience with the species then, maybe more than most.
seems like youre on a good path with wiring the shoots, letting grow then cutting them back. not sure why you think if you continue to do this the tree will end up a 'mess' as you put it. its for you to get in there and tidy it up from time to time, as in removing unwanted shoots, leggy shoots, shoots in crotches, shoots snaking back the wrong way etc youre aware of this part of building the structure right?

I've got the collecting part down, but developing the tree is where I'm still learning. I think the "shoots snaking back the wrong way" part is what I'm nervous about. Which way is the wrong way? I'm nervous that if I do wire a branch the wrong direction I'll waste a full year developing branches off of that branch and will have to remove it later.
In my picture above I try to make all secondary shoots (off of the primary branch) at least 45 degree angle, possibly 90 degree angle from the primary branch. Does that look correct so far? This thread has been super helpful so far - thanks for your input as well!

 

[Joe Dupre']

All I can give you is "WOW, what an exceptional specimen!!" . Err on the side of caution. Those kinds of specimens don't come around often.

 

[BobbyLane]

youve already wired the shoots to go up and out, so i think the rest of the branches should follow trend. they will develop quicker also if going up n out and reaching toward the light and this allows light into the tree.
snaking back as in going back towards the trunk.
maybe if you have a inspirational shot of how youd like it to look. i dont see much bougis here tbh. is the natural habit to go up n out or do you just want to mimic the growth of a deciduous tree? ive always thought bougies were more mediterranean/tropical. if i had one i would probably lean towards more of a 'fairy tale' style, similar to how some of the prunus trees are done.
you need to work with the tree and go with what suits it, looks ok so far as in setting basic lines

 

[JoeR]

if i was looking for a bougi i think these represent good value.

Search results for: 'bougainvillea'

Kaizen Bonsai are specialist suppliers of Bonsai tools, gifts and fertilizers accompanied by a huge archive of videos and information on Bonsai care

www.kaizenbonsai.com

bark quality on this is pretty epic

Damn only 225 euro for that? Thats not bad at all IMO, considering its a tropical and europe is... not so tropical lol

 

[BobbyLane]

Damn only 225 euro for that? Thats not bad at all IMO, considering its a tropical and europe is... not so tropical lol

to my knowledge they thrive in a mediterranean climate, that one was collected in Sicily. im sure it would do fine in the southern UK too if kept dry over winter.

 

[JoeR]

to my knowledge they thrive in a mediterranean climate, that one was collected in Sicily. im sure it would do fine in the southern UK too if kept dry over winter.

Right, good point. Now that I think of it, I believe I've seen several very large specimens come from Spain and the likes. There is a nursery near me that has a massive bougie, probably 8' tall and nice trunk. Also have smaller plants in all sorts of flower colors. Every time I drive by I consider stopping and buying the big one, and chopping it in the parking lot to see their reaction. But alas, quite the price tag.

 

[cbrshadow23]

Right, good point. Now that I think of it, I believe I've seen several very large specimens come from Spain and the likes. There is a nursery near me that has a massive bougie, probably 8' tall and nice trunk. Also have smaller plants in all sorts of flower colors. Every time I drive by I consider stopping and buying the big one, and chopping it in the parking lot to see their reaction. But alas, quite the price tag.

You don't happen to have a picture by chance? I'd be curious to see that 8' bougie and to hear what they're asking for it.

I have another Bougainvillea that I collected recently that I'd like some advice on, but I'll post a separate thread for that one. I hope you guys all chime in for that one as well.

 

[BobbyLane]

this one is quite small

 

[cbrshadow23]

so you have good experience with the species then, maybe more than most.
seems like youre on a good path with wiring the shoots, letting grow then cutting them back. not sure why you think if you continue to do this the tree will end up a 'mess' as you put it. its for you to get in there and tidy it up from time to time, as in removing unwanted shoots, leggy shoots, shoots in crotches, shoots snaking back the wrong way etc youre aware of this part of building the structure right?

if not, maybe this will help somewhat

This video is so helpful. Thank you