Nursery Dwarf Yaupon Holly #1

[Apex37]

Picked up this little guy from Lowe's over the weekend. I thought he had an interesting nebari and decent taper. Kinda hard to tell, but it's about 1.5" thick and while normally I'm not a fan, I thought the roots were actually interesting. Still not sure if I should keep them or not.

I was wondering if it's too late to repot? I've read they can do later spring repots Mar-early May, but figured I'd ask before taking it on. I've never worked on hollies before so not sure how much they can take in terms of root reduction and pruning. This guy is going to need both, but I think he has potential as a shohin or something down the road.

 

[Crazy Diamond]

Nice tree, the roots could be workable or a nightmare who knows.. but I guess thats the exciting part of nursery plants you never know what to expect xD

 

[Apex37]

Repotted this one back in spring 2023 and did nothing pruning wise and just let it grow all year. Getting its first haircut this week. I have two fronts I’m trying to decide between.

Before:



After:



Now we need to decide what main branches to keep and which to remove. This branch has slight inverse taper that I need to keep in mind.



Now the options.
A:

B:

C:

D:


Thoughts? Opinions?
Still mulling this one over, but leaning towards A or B.

 

[Kodama]

Hmm..I agree with choice A for now. You can always chop more later but can't glue it back on. Have you seen other Holly trees you think this could be a candidate to model after?

 

[Apex37]

Hmm..I agree with choice A for now. You can always chop more later but can't glue it back on. Have you seen other Holly trees you think this could be a candidate to model after?

Here’s a couple, although they don’t really look like my tree as they’re significantly chunkier. There’s not a crazy amount of really developed yaupon hollies to reference online. I’d love to get it around shohin height, but that might be a hard ask. Either way, all my trees end up being around 8”-18” it seems like.



I always reference back to Jonas’ progressions on them:

Developing Yaupon holly bonsai - a tale of when not to cut - Bonsai Tonight

Yaupon holly has been on my mind this week. I'm doing a demonstration on one tonight at a club meeting of the American Bonsai Association, Sacramento, and

bonsaitonight.com

 

[Apex37]

Did some light wiring and final pruning. Now to let it grow.

 

[Dabbler]

Not too bad - though I would have shorten all the branches on my first cut backs - but it's has great potential!

 

[Apex37]

Not too bad - though I would have shorten all the branches on my first cut backs - but it's has great potential!

Are you meaning something like this?


I thought about it, but I still feel fairly new to all this so I was trying to give myself some insurance.

 

[Dabbler]

Yeah - maybe even a smidge lower - but I wouldn't do it now as it might be too much stress of it. I had a few of these over the years and they are tough buggers and when I first get them like this as nursery stock - I repot them and pretty much cut them down to the base structure and they usually always do fine.

 

[Apex37]

Yeah - maybe even a smidge lower - but I wouldn't do it now as it might be too much stress of it. I had a few of these over the years and they are tough buggers and when I first get them like this as nursery stock - I repot them and pretty much cut them down to the base structure and they usually always do fine.

Do they back bud well? I removed a lot, so I was hoping it would back bud to an area I can cut back to.

 

[namnhi]

Do they back bud well? I removed a lot, so I was hoping it would back bud to an area I can cut back to.

Yes they do bud back readily. I would cut it lower as well. Right now your primary branches are still too straight and long.

 

[Apex37]

Yes they do bud back readily. I would cut it lower as well. Right now your primary branches are still too straight and long.

Agreed. Okay, good to know! This is my only one and the first time doing real work on it, so still learning how they tick.

 

[Apex37]

Well time for summer update. I wasn’t happy with how my last pruning was so I ended up shortening everything from the last photo.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take pics, but it responded really well with growth, but I did get some dieback on the thicker branches. Honestly though, I feel like it worked to my favor kinda restarting some of the main branches.

Before:


After: