Thickening a sapling trunk

[Nellb]

Hello everybody,

So I have a quick question about trunks of a sapling. In January I got a tiny tamarind sapling that was struggling to survive, so being in Connecticut I brought it inside stuck it under a grow light and let it do it's thing, hoping it would bounce back. Well it rehabbed nicely and put on some growth, but it's trunk had a weird curve that I wanted gone so I wired.

Yesterday I took the wire off and realized the tree grew too fast and the trunk couldn't support the weight of the new growth, I was wondering if anyone had ideas what I should do to strengthen the trunk, other then planting it in the frozen ground...

Thank you for your help, I've included a few pictures for reference

 

[fredman]

Put a supporting stick in the soil and tie the sapling to it.

 

[petegreg]

Nice for seedling. All it needs is light + water + food + love...and freedom of growth.

 

[Alain]

Put a supporting stick in the soil and tie the sapling to it.

Right on! Think tomatoes

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

nice. I suspect the reason the seedling is soft and floppy is that light levels are too low. You can run the grow light up to 18 hours a day to make up somewhat for low light intensity. Tamarind is a full sun plant, once Connecticut warms up, put it outside for summer. Tamarind make nice bonsai, they have a cool looking rough bark when mature.

Tamarind branches get hard and brittle quickly, often once a branch is 2 years old it will be too late to bend it. Wire your trunk to a shape you like now, once it sets there is no changing it except by cutting it off. They do back bud easily, you chop them down and re-grow trunks and branches pretty much as you need to.

To get a trunk, you need to let it grow big, then cut back. If you look at a book or on web and see an 8 inch tall bonsai with a fat 3 inch diameter truck, there probably was several grow out cycles where that 8 inch tall tree was as much as 6 feet tall. Then it was cut back and allowed to grow large. So plan on growing this Tamarind out, let it get to be a 6 foot tall whip of a tree. Often thay can get that big in 3 or 4 months of summer. Cut it back for winter and repeat.

If you always keep it pruned to a small tree, it will always be a slender trunk. I had a pomegranate that I never let get over24 inches tall, after 38 years its trunk was barely one inch in diameter. Trees need to grow out to thicken trunks.

 

[Nellb]

So simple, who would have thought! Thanks guys!

This is what it looked like when I got it

Along with another tamarind sapling that I call my tropical Charlie Brown Christmas tree


This is how I got it, but it's doing much better since then lol



Just felt like sharing my pity projects that I'm proud of

 

[Nellb]

Thanks for the info Leo, I'll keep that in mind. I love the look of the tamarind so I'm excited to see how these trees grow out and what they can become!

 

[Cypress187]

I have my saplings in the ground (and still they are growing so slowly, hard to resist chopping pieces off it).

 

[Geo]

More light.More heat.And do not work them at all if the temp at night is less than 70F.Mine are outside and still in dormancy here.