Douglas Fir Bonsai

[Newish in Oregon]

I have a Douglas Fir from a neighbor who potted up the volunteer from her yard. It's about 3' tall in a 4 gallon pot. I've been growing other species seedlings for several years with bonsai aspirations and have taken 'senior' classes for about 9 months. But I really am unsure where to start w/ this fir. Suggestions and/or resources greatly appreciated.

 

[Tycoss]

Pictures?

 

[Newish in Oregon]

Not 100% sure what to show in picts...first four are the 4 sides and then one that hopefully shows budding. If something more specific would be useful, let me know and I can add more tomorrow.

 

[0soyoung]

I've got a bunch of these, both little volunteers I find in my yard (coastal variety) and ones that I acquired from ArborDay . They can be treated like a spruce/fir as cut back to a bud. Any stem (internode) without a bud the end will become a dead stem, so one must cut back to a node or a bud. I continue to do this in late summer, after the new foliage has all hardened. With spruce this seems to strongly stimulate back budding, even on the trunk of the spruce, but it doesn't seem to work that way on pseudotsuga. Buds sometimes show up on leafless wood, but for reasons I still cannot decipher. They just do their thing with the only predictable budding being the abundance of budding on the dominant leader. I have read in forestry papers that the crowns of forest Douglas firs spontaneously renew (bud) after 8 or so years which might mean back budding is simply age related, but I know that is not exactly true either.

Maybe @wireme will chime in. He's got several Douglas fir yamadori and has a better grasp of this stuff that find to be interesting but which continues to confound and elude my understanding.

Otherwise, it is just the same ole 'make a tree' problem . Wire it and bend the hell out of it it you want, they are very flexible and readily set up / lignify in position. Let the main trunk be a sacrificial leader, then cut it off and choose a low branch to be the next trunk segment, etc. etc. None of mine are bonsai and I'm not at all confident they ever will - time will tell. I enjoy fiddling.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Douglas Fir can make very nice bonsai.

Your is young enough, it definitely needs more time to grow.

You need to decide what you want in the future - straight up trunk, slant, cascade, Formal upright, informal whatever. And you need to decide how big you want it. I suggest shooting for something larger than smaller, maybe 24 inches tall.

Anyway, make those decisions, then we can help you plan on how to get there.

 

[sorce]

Welcome to Crazy!

Sorce

 

[Jzack605]

Recreate a mature one battered from elements.

 

[RKatzin]

Hey! Welcome to the forum! Always glad to see another Oregonian join the ranks. Where are you located? I'm north of Grants Pass at Roberts Mountain Bonsai Project. Glad to be helpful if you need assistance, pots, tools, trees, just say hey Rick! Lots of collectables on 40acres of private land and thousands of acres of surrounding county and state lands. Open invitation, come on get ya some!

 

[August44]

Yes welcome to another Oregonian. I am in Baker City, Or where we have the Elkhorn Mts right in back of town for collecting. I'm pretty new to this and it is a bit of a struggle with no one else in the area that practices the art. Good luck and let me know if I can be of any help to you. Best, Peter

 

[phloem]

Hi people, calling out from New Zealand. i have a douglas fir yamadori, collected poss up to 10 years ago, its possibly 20-25 years old now. its in a rather small pot for its size. They've been one of the hardest species to get my head around and not totally sure what to do. I've only really got buds on tips of branches, no obvious dormant back buds sitting on stems further back? however i do have some much smaller branches which have pushed very small amounts of growth this year(up to 1 inch in length ) further back on some branches ( from historic dormant lateral buds ). the tree is healthy enough looking, my question is (and by the way its mid summer and this years growth has hardened) do i prune back to this much smaller growth now, removing a large % of overall foliage or should i just remove buds growing at tips of branches which have smaller branches further back in an effort to push growth to these smaller banshees or do i just leave the tree to grow happily and let those smaller branches develop until a future date? or should i repot and prune hard over winter? any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[August44]

I have about 15 billion of these trees in the Mts right outside of town. I have never collected one as yet. Hope to find a nice one or two this spring. I would be happy to find one as nice as yours. Have the side branches or the apex grown out much since you've had it? How long has it been in that pot? I am thinking that it should be in a lot bigger container to get a lot of growth, but I am not very experienced here. Hope someone chimes in as I would like to know the answers also. Peter

 

[Newish in Oregon]

All- apologies for my slow follow ups; life and holidays got in the way.
To my fellow Oregonians- Thanks for the welcome. I'm in Portland so don't have the yamadori opportunities you guys have.
To Leo and others who have advice to offer- I think I'd like to go for a slant style; 2 feet or so seems like a reasonable size. So like phloem, I need guidance on timing and how to proceed.

 

[Newish in Oregon]

I've finally worked up the nerve to work on this Douglas Fir. I chopped it below the highest branch whorl as there was significant thickening there that disrupted the taper. I've built a pallet derived grow box, about 6" deep, 2' x 1.5'. A couple of more questions: (1) The tree has a set of bar branches [2 branches 180 degrees from each other]. Does one branch need to go or is there a wiring approach to fix it? (2) Trying to figure out soil...I have pumice and perlite and will be picking up some NAPA 8822. I'm getting the sense I should use the perlite for other purposes. So I'm wondering if I should just go w/ pumice plus NAPA 8822 or if it would be helpful to mix in coffee grounds for a bit of acidity?

 

[parhamr]

@Newish in Oregon i want to strongly push you to other fantastic sources of bonsai soil than 8822. We have it real good up here in Portland!

Where to get pumice:

• Mt. Scott Fuel, delivered by truck by the yard
• Portland Nursery, by the cubic foot bag
• Concentrates, Inc., by the cubic foot or a pallet
• Landscaping supply stores, by the truck or you-load by the 5-gallon bucket
• Portland Bonsai Supply, but the cubic foot
• River Rock Nursery

It’s also possible to buy diatomaceous earth gravel, screened horticultural grade perlite, or various forms of hydroponic soil media. Those can be found at “specialty” garden stores or landscaping supply stores.

I have about 3 Douglas-fir bonsai, recently sold 6 of them as pre-bonsai, and have another 18 saplings.

The details from @0soyoung are spot on. The process suggestion from @Leo in N E Illinois is important.

Know that if you want the branches to leave the tree downwards, the growth habit of the tree affords you the chance to wire them down early in their growth phase. Use copper wire. Doing this results in beautiful branching.

Don’t be afraid to let the wire bite in about halfway. These trees heal wounds nicely and their corky bark will gradually hide the scar.

Are you in BSOP?

 

[Potawatomi13]

Hey! Welcome to the forum! Always glad to see another Oregonian join the ranks.

Hear Hear! You live in PERFECT area. Portland Bonsai Club, talk to Ryan Neil, Michael Hagedorn, others in club who also keep or know these trees. Personally have one posted somewhere else on here developing as Cascade. Ryan has Yamadori DF in personal collection/nursery

 

[Potawatomi13]

I'm in Portland so don't have the yamadori opportunities you guys have

Oh, yes you do! Randy Knight one of worlds best collectors also in your area also collects DF. Personally have 4 Ponderosas from him. You landed in Bonsai paradise.

 

[Newish in Oregon]

@Potawatomi13 I stand corrected on the yamadori issue. But I guess, until I get much more proficient, I'll not want to do any wild collecting but will keep my eye out for plants available from landscaping makeovers and the like

 

[Newish in Oregon]

@Newish in Oregon i want to strongly push you to other fantastic sources of bonsai soil than 8822. We have it real good up here in Portland!

Are you in BSOP?

I already have a bag of pumice from Portland Nursery and also some perlite. I've seen perlite characterized as 'lightweight pumice' so wasn't planning on mixing them. Guess my big question is what should be the make up of the soil for my Douglas fir? And perhaps a smaller question, is there something wrong w/ 8822 or do we just have better options here in Portland?
I went to BSOP's fall jamboree but haven't joined yet.

 

[parhamr]

I already have a bag of pumice from Portland Nursery and also some perlite. I've seen perlite characterized as 'lightweight pumice' so wasn't planning on mixing them. Guess my big question is what should be the make up of the soil for my Douglas fir? And perhaps a smaller question, is there something wrong w/ 8822 or do we just have better options here in Portland?
I went to BSOP's fall jamboree but haven't joined yet.

Great! The 8822 is pretty good, but it’s a lower grade of diatomaceous earth than the “horticultural grade” types. We can readily find pumice, akadama, and lava around the metro area.

Perlite, pumice, lava, and screened fir bark is a very effective medium for growing out Douglas-fir. What you’ve heard about perlite is right, however, that it’s not very useful in shallow bonsai pots. In training pots and medium used for development it’s effective and inexpensive!

 

[Newish in Oregon]

This guy has put on a lot of girth since I first posted and I was thinking I'd get some pictures and seek some more design advice. But...it took a bit of a hit when we were out of town unexpectedly during a hot spell. All of the needles on some branches have browned tho other branches seem perfectly healthy. Are the branches w/ brown needles goners or will they show growth in the spring?