SU2
Omono
I've got two bougainvillea yamadori's, collected 1 and 1.5mo ago, and they're just exploding with growth - the problem (as my amateur eyes see it, at least) is that it's just like 30+ shoots per plant growing (almost entirely) straight upwards. I've started gently interfering in two ways...first, seeing as how the idea is for these shoots to become strong primary branches at some point, it seems inefficient to me to just let them grow straight upwards right now, only to later try and use copper to alter lines. To help fix this (perceived)problem, I've done something that I'm pretty sure goes against conventional wisdom, in that I made 'ornaments' for many (~15%) of the shoots, these ornaments are just thin 30g galvanized wire wrapped around a small rock and then hung from a branch, effectively pulling the branches into angles of my choosing (some to go with the cuts of the yamadori, some to make horizontal branches lower on the trunk, etc etc) Is there anything wrong with this that I'm not seeing? Would hate to be making a mistake, but every way I look at it I feel the mistake is in letting these baby-branches lignify into undesirable shapes when it's so incredibly easy to shape them when they're fresh&supple, so much less work bending + quicker results + more finite control.
Another thing that I commonly see recommended-against is to do any pruning to freshly harvested yamadori, to let them grow a season or two before even thinking of touching them. I know they need lots of green to be strong and grow right now, *but* I've done a handful of pinches to some of the shoots (literally just pinching the very tip of the shoot, the tiny little tip only!) which, naturally, has caused those shoots to now be thin branches with multiple shoots coming from the nodes further down the shoot. I'm certainly not saying I'd remove any significant amount of green from these plants, but if I pinch the tips of all my fresh shoots when they're ~8" long with 4 nodes down-shoot that they'll back-bud from, and *then* adhere to the 'leave it for the season/two seasons' mantra, I'll have far more branches than I'd have otherwise had! I've heard arguments to this thinking that are along the lines of 'you'll get more thickness letting it get longer' but this method only slows growth for the shortest of periods, right away the pinched branch is back in growth so any 'losses of growth', and the corresponding girth, seem entirely insignificant IMO.
Any thoughts on my two departures would be greatly appreciated! Right now I've only pinched the tips of like 5 shoots between the two plants, and I've got 'ornaments' bending about 10-15 shoots between both stumps, but am thinking of doing this to much more ie continue using ornaments to direct any growth I think is in the wrong way, and to pinch the tips of most of the shoots so that, at the end of the first growing season, I have like 4x as many branch tips as I otherwise would have - ramification and taper are hugely important and I feel like these are very useful starting-steps towards them on a yamadori's first growths!
(pics attached are of them before I started using 'the ornaments' to weigh-down some branches!)
Another thing that I commonly see recommended-against is to do any pruning to freshly harvested yamadori, to let them grow a season or two before even thinking of touching them. I know they need lots of green to be strong and grow right now, *but* I've done a handful of pinches to some of the shoots (literally just pinching the very tip of the shoot, the tiny little tip only!) which, naturally, has caused those shoots to now be thin branches with multiple shoots coming from the nodes further down the shoot. I'm certainly not saying I'd remove any significant amount of green from these plants, but if I pinch the tips of all my fresh shoots when they're ~8" long with 4 nodes down-shoot that they'll back-bud from, and *then* adhere to the 'leave it for the season/two seasons' mantra, I'll have far more branches than I'd have otherwise had! I've heard arguments to this thinking that are along the lines of 'you'll get more thickness letting it get longer' but this method only slows growth for the shortest of periods, right away the pinched branch is back in growth so any 'losses of growth', and the corresponding girth, seem entirely insignificant IMO.
Any thoughts on my two departures would be greatly appreciated! Right now I've only pinched the tips of like 5 shoots between the two plants, and I've got 'ornaments' bending about 10-15 shoots between both stumps, but am thinking of doing this to much more ie continue using ornaments to direct any growth I think is in the wrong way, and to pinch the tips of most of the shoots so that, at the end of the first growing season, I have like 4x as many branch tips as I otherwise would have - ramification and taper are hugely important and I feel like these are very useful starting-steps towards them on a yamadori's first growths!
(pics attached are of them before I started using 'the ornaments' to weigh-down some branches!)
