Why I love the Primo arborvitae

[MMJNICE]

@MMJNICE Great small Primo plantings, I like them.

Here's one of my Primo cuttings:
1st year - planted in the ground to grow roots
2nd year - wired for movement
3rd year - planted in this small pot, removed wire
4th year (a week ago) - first styling (trimmed a few branchlets to reveal the trunk)
View attachment 597613

Looks like it's got plenty of room for the roots. Very nice shape, i can see some possibilities for the future after it grows some more ramification. Thanks for sharing the cuttings in my little planting are around 3 or 4 years old I believe and seem to be about the same size as yours. So quickly question.. how big of a cutting have you ever tried to root? I've never had any luck with anything bigger then like half my pinky to my whole pinky in length really.

 

[bnw]

Looks like it's got plenty of room for the roots. Very nice shape, i can see some possibilities for the future after it grows some more ramification. Thanks for sharing the cuttings in my little planting are around 3 or 4 years old I believe and seem to be about the same size as yours. So quickly question.. how big of a cutting have you ever tried to root? I've never had any luck with anything bigger then like half my pinky to my whole pinky in length really.

Yes, it has some room but not much. My plan was to grow it out in the ground for another year or two, but my son wanted to put it in this small pot. So it will develop slowly, but that's fine with me. Faster isn't always better.

I've only attemped to root maybe 5 Primo cuttings total (I only have two Primos total, three if you count this cutting). All cuttings were about this size. A few of them failed, although I might still have a couple in my grow bed?

 

[MMJNICE]

Guess what??? I got another one!! I really need to make a bomb ass forest with how many of these things i got laying around.. it's really hard to pass up a base like this one his. I did a very early styling but this is just the first of many to refine this tree for a future forest. I think right now it looks just like a giant sequoia tree in California somewhere as a matter of fact that's how I see the future forest looking like a giant redwood forest maybe have some star wars ewok village kinda vibe is what i see in my head.. could be epic!!!

 

[bnw]

Guess what??? I got another one!! I really need to make a bomb ass forest with how many of these things i got laying around.. it's really hard to pass up a base like this one his. I did a very early styling but this is just the first of many to refine this tree for a future forest. I think right now it looks just like a giant sequoia tree in California somewhere as a matter of fact that's how I see the future forest looking like a giant redwood forest maybe have some star wars ewok village kinda vibe is what i see in my head.. could be epic!!!

Nice nebari. I looked at getting another Primo this year, but the few small ones available at my local nursery weren't looking too great. And I was looking for a larger one that was more this size. I agree that Primo would work well for a small forest.

 

[MMJNICE]

So i separated the airlayer from my larger oldest primo a month ago and looks like it's taken to rooting on it's own judging by the roots hanging out the colander so it was fairly easy to airlayer if anyone was wondering. Didn't have a ton of roots when I separated it either so that's encouraging. What's weird is when you get these from nursery pots, they have roots hanging on the lower branches, right? I tried rooting some of the larger ones and non lived but this airlayer is putting on growth already after being separated for only a month or so.

 

[MMJNICE]

 

[MMJNICE]

I'm not sure what im going to make out of the airlayer tree im just happy it's growing good and has a good chance of surviving long-term. Right now it just kinda looks like a bush because I haven't touched it or trimmed it yet. I'll probably give it it's first styling this winter or after it drops it's old leaves for the season. ********And just a tip I normally don't do any trimming on my primo thuja in late summer because it started dropping foliage around fall time and you could be taking off too much foliage it needs for winter time.********

 

[bnw]

Congrats on the successful airlayer. And nice sedum on that tree in the round brown pot! I think I have that same sedum species.

Not at all a bad idea about not trimming in late summer, your reasoning seems sound to me. I just pruned mine and styled a mame tree a couple weeks ago (early August; videos forthcoming in the next week or two); but yeah, maybe I should have done it earlier in the growing season to let the tree gain vigor for the winter... I do worry about overpruning/losing branches on these little dwarfs...