Kiwi’s old JBP

[KiwiPlantGuy]

Hi all,
I recently bought the below pictured JBP. It’s age is said to be around 40yrs old. It hasn’t had much work done on it over the years. It is Spring/early Summer and there are no candles. Seeing the poor trees plight I decided to repot this into my favoured mix of Pumice/Lava/Bark as it hadn’t been repotted forever and was in a pure composted bark. It had very little micoryzza(sp) and a few decent roots around the edge of the pot. So I collected up the good white fungi and added it to my new box. Now with some fertiliser and a whole load of patience I wait for the tree to respond.
There are multiple flaws in the design, if there is any design is debatable. So to get this healthy and then prune and compact the growth will be the first steps, and some wire eventually.
The preferred front is the first photo, and other sides after that. A foliage photo shows it is in ok health just starving!!
Comments/suggestions will be welcome, and tagging @River's Edge and @Adair M for some help too.


Looking forward to comments,
Charles

 

[Pixar]

Nice tree , did you get it from trademe ?

 

[KiwiPlantGuy]

Hi,
I bought this from a club member. I am pleased to own something this old, just a bit of work now which will be fun!
Charles

 

[Shibui]

Old is overrated IMHO. Give me form and potential over age any day of the week.

I'm sure you know to allow time for this one to recover some vigour before more work. My eye is drawn to the lower branch. Maybe consider a design that gets rid of all the rest? Definitely need to take time to consider a restyle that drastic but sometimes drastic is what is needed.

 

[Potawatomi13]

Decent base, some taper in trunk, age and appearance of actual Yamadori tree are plusses. Good starter tree for JBP.

 

[MichaelS]

You seem to have branches looped around the trunk to where they don't belong. There might be something very interesting in there somewhere but it is very hard to suggest it without actually having it front of you. The first thing you could do is to wire the looped branches back into their original (more or less) positions - or at least towards it - and then take more pictures. The front will most likely change. Those prop roots will be the first thing to go. You might be able to work something like this below if you are willing to reduce the height and can remove branch 2 and replace it with something coming from branch one? Hard to say........

 

[KiwiPlantGuy]

You seem to have branches looped around the trunk to where they don't belong. There might be something very interesting in there somewhere but it is very hard to suggest it without actually having it front of you. The first thing you could do is to wire the looped branches back into their original (more or less) positions - or at least towards it - and then take more pictures. The front will most likely change. Those prop roots will be the first thing to go. You might be able to work something like this below if you are willing to reduce the height and can remove branch 2 and replace it with something coming from branch one? Hard to say........

Hi MichaelS,
Thank you for your virt drawings. This has helped give a new perspective so thank you.
The weird wiring to pull branches around to the back or side has certainly given me a headache or three! And those aerial roots- I have cut one off already. Nearly had me question the purchase but being old and these trees don’t come up at all to buy so I had to.
Charles