Pink Flowered Ironbark – 2017, 2018, 2019 Training

This one I bought for $15 from Trenthowan Nursery. It wasn’t great stock, so it’s been in training trying for 4 years to get it into a better shape. The tree responds well to back budding, but I struggle to get well defined leaf pads.

Here are the May 2017 shots from the nursery:

At this stage the tree is about 6 foot, with is too much tree. So the top had to go:

Yes, I certainly didn’t mess about taking a cutting of the top which died immediately.

In November 2017, I tried wiring out the branches for spread:

This is a tree that loves summer. Here it is in January 2018:

In a bonsai all that foliage is too high for that trunk… a recurring problem.

In March 2018 I cut off some of the top to try to lower the height. I think I was overly timid.

That could come down another foot to the third branch.

In January 2019, it had run wild for several months:

And inside that it’s happy to back bud on existing branches:

Potentially useful, but it doesn’t seem to help much.

So (still in January) let’s try to impose some order:

…and again in April:

Let’s end with May 2019.

I think the big reflection here is that I struggled to visualise the cuts needed for being in a bot. The training repeatedly went awry because I couldn’t see what was needed.