Nursery Japanese cedar, potential?

[Cattwooduk]

So I popped by my usual garden centre/nursery today for 45 minutes before they closed to have a poke around, going to go back tomorrow as I ran out of time after all the time spent scraping at surface soil.

I've yet to add any conifers to my collection which currently consists of material recovering from collection and a couple of nursery things awaiting the butchers block... one day I'll hopefully learn to spot actual potential and make something of it. Having fun making a mess so far at least!

I found these 3 Japanese Cedar, a little hard to make out the trunks and flare very well and I didn't spend too long clearing the dead stuff out all the way round the plants. Just enough to get a picture or two to see some of the structure inside part of the way up. They all have a few bits of fresh growth on the inside which is good. They're about £20 so I'm thinking I might treat myself to a couple for my birthday in a week or so if they're any good.

Any thoughts on whether these could become anything would be appreciated.

Cedar 1 -


Cedar 2 -


Cedar 3-

 

[defra]

I like the first one
But i realy dont know anything about the species so no help there

 

[Sn0W]

Hey @Cattwooduk a fellow Bristolian! I like the first one, looks like a nice trunk for a small tree! I picked one up a few days ago with a nice trunk, will be a learning experience for me too. Not a lot of information around on them. Rocky Mountain Nursery, Middlecombe Nursery, Brackenwood and Winrow Nursery have a nice selection to dig through

 

[Cattwooduk]

Yeah I just posted in the other thread I saw you're in Bristol as well! All the other UK members here are at least a few hours away, finally someone a bit closer!

Brackenwood is where I saw the ones I posted above. I've got an account there because I spend a fair amount of money with them for various jobs I do which means I get a bit of a discount I've not been to Rocky Mountain or Winrow Nursery before, I'll to go check it out!

 

[Cattwooduk]

edit: deleting message not relevant which I thought I was posting in a different thread!

 

[Cattwooduk]

Sooo I grabbed one of the ones I originally posted, and another different one. I had a spare half hour this afternoon to start clearing all the dead stuff out and get a better idea of the framework inside.


I know these cryptos are usually grown as a single straight trunk, but I quite liked the form of it anyway. I also appreciate that with fairly long bare branches before growth it might be harder than I first thought to make something of this but it'll be a bit of practice all the same. There was A LOT of dead stuff to clear out which was more than I had first realised, on the plus side there is a good few fresh new shoots inside and with the extra light and air I'm hoping some more bits will push this season.

Unsure whether to pursue a multi trunk style or maybe to jin one or maybe even two of the trunks and stick with one. Until I have time to sit and ponder over it for a while and work out which branches to use and wire I wont know.

After reading around it looks best to do one thing per season on cryptos. I'm thinking I will leave it in this pot for spring and lightly thin out some of the foliage, possibly take out a few branches, do some minor wiring for practice and then see how it fares. If it responds well I might repot in the autumn but only remove about 50% of the soil it's in. Or would it be best just to do all that in one go during spring? Or just leave repotting until next spring if I do some work on the top this year?

 

[Handsome John]

Repot it first and don't worry about styling until later, I find that they need the time to recover but if you have good after care like misting the foliage (they love it) on hot dry days you can do some pruning in the early fall. Save the heavy styling for next year because you'll see alot more opportunities to refine it. Plus they back bud better in the years when they're not repotted. certainly some great material to work with, Dont keep it triple trunk lol they look better as a double with longer jin. But thats my own personal taste haha. Youre in for a lot of pinching to get that compact foliage, either you'll love it like me or hate it haha

 

[Cattwooduk]

Thanks!
I was leaning towards a double trunk as I really can't find many (if any) multi trunk examples, maybe the third one kept with shari all the way up and then a few branches with jin so it comes through the lower branches. Just throwing ideas!

How much can I pinch back the foliage this year if at all? some of the green is real long and quite far from the trunks. I think I'll enjoy it, it was immensely satisfying just clearing out half a bucket full of dead needles from the inside of it.

I've got another smaller one to clean up and post here as well when I get time.

 

[Handsome John]

If you're going to skip the repot and jump into working it, then do the first round of pinching when its growing tips are extending, usually that's around late may for me but probably earlier for you, but the focus is on setting branching structures so don't pinch all the tips and only the most dominant and start pruning and wiring the primary branches carefully, once its cut back just let it rest and grow back in. if you're going to repot this year then just prune off the super lanky stuff. I find the first repot from nursery soil to bonsai soil takes a lot out of the tree, but once they're settled in they take off. Im lucky that I have a lot of articles and books related to cryptomeria bonsai, but one of the best resources for styling and general knowledge of them is Ryan Neil's nursery stock series #2, https://live.bonsaimirai.com/archive/video/nursery-stock-series-pt.-2 (plus its free)

 

[GGB]

I love cryptomeria as trees. Don't know much about them in bonsai culture but that trunk looks pretty nice. I had a small one grown from seed and at 3 years old a rabbit ate it down to a 2 inch stump and it sprouted and grew like a maple after a chop. Not many evergreen conifers can do that. And yes, brand new (to me) common knowledge says always repot nursery trees before worrying about anything else.
I've heard crypto can be touchy with root work. Go easy, you'll learn more

 

[Cattwooduk]

Ok thanks for the advice! I'll do a repot this spring into a slightly shallower box - I've got a few wooden ones to knock up for various material I've got. At this stage I'm calling them tree coffins.
I'll stick to removing half the soil it's in and go easy on how much root I tease out and remove. Then just take out the thin spindly and lanky stuff to open it out a bit more.

As you both said it makes sense to get it out this pot sooner than later, looks like quite a few spiralling roots and I expect the soil is pretty old now.

 

[Sn0W]

Here's the one I picked up, it's so root bound I couldn't even dig around the trunk with my hands:

 

[Cattwooduk]

Nice! Where was that from? I only looked at the bigger ones at Brackenwood and none of them had a single trunk.

I'm going back on Sunday to buy a load of stuff for a job. When I was there the other day I was talking to Nick (the tree guy there) who said he would let me have a look through the stock out back. He's also got a bunch of stuff he has trunk chopped and trained a little for fun when it wasn't good enough to sell.
I'll see if anything catches my eye and let you know what there is.

 

[Handsome John]

Looks like youre off on the right foot! keep us updated on the thread haha

 

[Sn0W]

Garden Park out by hewish. They had cryptomerias and birds nest spruce all grown themselves.

 

[Cattwooduk]

I cleared out the second crypto this afternoon, this one is a little smaller twin trunk that has given me a couple of ideas while I was playing with it... roll on spring!
I'm thinking I might repot one this spring, and then have a play with the structure of the other one and repot it next spring so I can have a go at doing both this year. I can find out how well both recover from the work as well that way.