My American Elms Bonsai Plus Tropical Work, Part 2
It sure is a lot nicer indoors here it’s getting quite cold outside i mentioned in the last video that my plant room here is starting to look like a jungle we’ve had so many sunny days this month that everything’s just growing like crazy so today i’m going to be pruning back some of that new growth on these tropical trees just getting them back to shape and i think i’ll start today with my guava tree it’s doing really well so let’s get that out and begin the pruning here’s a look at my guava so it’s growing really well it looks nice and healthy i did get some dye back at the top of the apex here there’s uh yeah nothing ever grew in the top branches here i do have a bud that’s trying to come out about here but i guess the top died off it doesn’t matter i’ve got lots of branches here to replace that that dead branch up top there so yeah so there’s the guava tree looking nice and healthy i’ve noticed with my guava that as the trunk thickens up it starts to look better proportioned it doesn’t look so tall and skinny and it starts starting to look more more tree-like i guess it has a long way to go a lot of thickening to do and a lot of branch development it’s sort of uh i would say it still looks like a seedling but it’ll get there it’ll get there it’s doing well i’m up top now having a look at what’s growing and what’s not so yeah that buds dried there yeah so i’ve got a branch here that’s alive a new shoot off to this side so this whole top looks like it’s dead oh wait no it’s not there is a butt at the very back here i don’t know if you can see that there’s a little butt at the back coming out so i’m just going to take off the dead part up top which i know is dead this part right here and then i’ll see what develops on this trunk or this upper trunk here oh tough wood yeah so that’s definitely dead dry and crispy so we’ll let that little shoot come out and then i can you know prune this stub back clean it up a bit i’m looking at this lowest branch here and there’s a dead section on it also i’m just trying to see you know what caused that branch to die i did prune a branch off the top here but other than that i don’t have any reason why this branch died here it should be alive but it’s not so off it comes and i don’t see any shoots on it so i’m going to take it right back to this junction and i’m going to leave some room for die back this this cut here was quite flush and the one i did on the top was quite flush so maybe with these guavas you got to leave a bit of a stub and then clean them up later on so i’m just going to take it off here like that that branch is also dead it’s all dried up and hard so i’m just looking to see if there’s any more dead branches on the tree well there’s one up top here in the apex there’s a division here and the one part of it died so i’ll take that off let’s prune it back to here so that’s it for the dead branches now i’ve got to prune back these living branches so i’m just going to shorten them i’ve got a lot of nice growth here you can see it’s shooting up so i’ll just take it back to the first pair of leaves so here i go like that like that i’ll leave this tip here it’s quite weak still so i’ll let that grow there’s a strong branch here i’ll take that one back i’ll take this one back to here doing a little bit of directional pruning i’ve got a hanging branch here i’ll take that back to here i got one i can back to here and this one to here up top here i’ve got a branch here i can take back one here and that has got all the new shoots pruned back so you can see it now i’m having a look at the tree just i can see the silhouette really nicely against the windows here so yeah i think once i get that stump off the top that’ll look better but other than that i think it’s doing all right i don’t really think i need these upward sweeping branches here when i’ve got this kind of cascading branch a little funny looking that so i think i’m going to prune these back even more try and get more vigor into this cascading branch here like that yeah so i don’t know i think somewhere somewhere maybe here is about the front i don’t know it may change in the future it’s not too bad a front about here it’s probably better yeah so that’s my guava tree it’s growing well there’s a look at the trunk on the tree so you know it’s almost the thickness of my finger now this tree was started from a seed by young in our club and i got it when it was uh i don’t know probably two years old i think the next tree i want to prune is my little ficus micro carpet cutting this is the cutting off my very first bolt’s eye so i was just pruning a stub off there so this new growth is really vigorous the leaf size is large it’s growing in really nicely the tree’s full of vigor so i’m going to prune it back so i’ll start with that i’ll start by pruning back the long shoots just to get it more compact and then i can make some decisions on kind of the style of the tree or whatever branches i want to keep now normally like i would let this grow a little longer but because it’s so vigorous i need to cut it back otherwise i’ll just get these huge leaves take that right back to there so it looks like i’ve got a bit of die back in the upper canopy here yeah so i’m going to prune that back here like that pruning off my dead bits i’ll leave the apex to grow and this doesn’t look good it’s too bad it had a nice division here but that died back so off it goes i’ll prune this back like that there’s a little branch here i can prune back okay and let’s see what else so right here i’ve got two branches growing from almost the same spot so i’m going to take off this one because it’s it’s at the junction of two branches already so i don’t want a third there so off it comes like that i uh i don’t i like this branch here it’s got two branches coming off of it i’m not really fond of that horizontal branch there however yeah and it you know from the front view it comes straight towards you which isn’t good so i’m going to take it off like that now you can see these two branches i can take off this part that’s sticking up that’s dead like that and then i’ve got three branches in this area i like the front two but the back one this one is kind of going across the whole structure of the tree so i don’t think i want that one so i’m going to remove it like that okay i’ll tip this one that branch and i’ve got at the back here i’ve got a dead branch and a new shoot so i’ll take off the dead part turn that one back a bit i’ve got a branch coming out the back here i’m going to take the i’ll take the end off of it like that i think that’s looking pretty good it’s got that branch structure sorted out i could take the tip off here i guess like that yeah so now everything’s living on the tree i’ll let that grow in and strengthen up a bit and then we’ll come back and prune it again and maybe a month or two i’ll give the tree some water and some fertilizer while i’ve got it out here all right that can go back on the bench now the next trees i’ll be pruning are my monkey ear trees they’re growing quite tall and vigorous in the previous video i had pruned the monkey ear tree off here hoping it would divide into a whole bunch of new branches but i only got one major branch coming off of this this trunk so then i prune that major branch here hoping to get something sprouting in this area and there’s there’s buds here but nothing did it just divided here and then i’ve got two long shoots here now so i’ll prune these back once again and hopefully something will develop in this area you can see on the trunk here i have a new shoot in this area there’s one down there but they just haven’t come out yet because i think all the vigor is going to this main leader here here i go with the pruning now so these are my new branches so i’ll prune them back here taking the top off here’s my other new branch i’ll take it off here keeping two leaflets and then two buds to fan it out this growth is really vigorous i’ll just prune back this stump here like that my other trees here they’re also this one’s similar i’m going to prune it back to here just shortening everything the one over here i’ll prune it back to here the one up front take it back to here like that i’ll take this branch back to here and this one back to here i think that’s got all the new growth pruned up you’ve seen there’s new shoots developing on it i think these trees will grow really well over the summer they’re quite vigorous growers all of the monkey ear trees in this planting were planted in june of 2019 so this summer in june they’ll be two years old and you can see the size of the trunk compared to my finger they’ve done really really well amazing they’re fast growing trees yeah i’m really happy with them i think i did some pretty good root pruning on them last time so i’m pretty sure they’re getting a nice radial root base down here too yeah it looks like uh looks like it’s developing a nice radial root base here’s a look at some of the radial roots developing around the base of the tree so i think they’ll need root pruning again this summer get this root system sorted out even better the seeds for these monkey ear trees were sent up to me by todd’s tropicals a really good youtube channel the last tropical tree i’ll be pruning today is my asparagus fern you can see how long the new shoots are growing in it’s getting way out of control almost looks like my hair doesn’t it so i’m going to prune it back again keeping it more compact so it doesn’t take up all this space on the benches here all right here i go i’m just going to prune back all these really long shoots there’s so many of them it’s just growing really vigorously it must have really liked that dormant period because it’s just growing like crazy so i’ll prune that one right off some of these are too low so they just got to come right off some of these are good they just need pruning back and all you can do is like a profile prune on these asparagus ferns they don’t really have branches or anything you just got to make them look tree like that’s about all you can do like that the back of it here wasn’t getting much light on the bench and it was too big for me to rotate so so here’s a branch that’s coming out really low here i can just take the whole thing off a new one forming here that’s going very strangely there we go twisty one yeah so just a bit of pruning and like i said with these you just gotta keep pruning them taking vigor out of them until the new shoots come in a little more compact full sun helps so in the middle of the summer it’ll look quite good it’s hard to keep them looking really good in the winter time okay i think that’s not too bad i’ll spin the asparagus fern around so you can have a look at it from all angles so it’s doing quite well there’s a lot of new aerial roots growing in on the trunk here so i just keep misting it you just kind of mist around the trunk a couple of times a day and the humidity in the plant room kind of helps them grow too and while i have it out i’ll give it a good watering fertilizer all right i think that’s good i think it’s uh yeah looking good it has been a really good month for sunshine all the plants are growing really well so i’ll be doing more pruning in upcoming videos but that’s all for today i’m nigel saunders thanks for joining me in the bonsai zone
