5yr Native Tree Challenge - Dingus's physocarpus opulifolius (Ninebark)

[LittleDingus]

This thread will track my efforts at physocarpus opulifolius over the next 5 years...or until I kill the trees...whichever comes first!

Physocarpus opulifolius - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

USDA Plants Database

plants.usda.gov

I ended up with 2 plants of different cultivars.

Originally I bought a nursery sale 'Amber Jubilee' on 9/17/2020.



I was thinking it would just sit in the nursery pot until spring. But then I went to visit my grandchildren for the weekend and when I returned, the plant was severely wilted and dying! I had watered it just before I left and it was not particularly hot or windy that weekend. In fact, it was even tucked behind some bushes out of most of the direct light. All my other trees didn't even notice I was gone...but this one was pounding on death's door already

We have a lot of warn, dry weather left before winter and I didn't want to be fighting the poor soil for months so, even though the plant was already half dead...I repotted it!



Meanwhile, since I was unsure if that tree would live or die...I went back to the nursery and bought another one on 9/30/2020. This time a 'Tiny Wine' cultivar. I loved the jubilee for the color and I do hope it survives, but the tiny wine has significantly smaller leaves and should make a smaller bonsai.



The nursery only had 2 available at the time. This one and a scrawny one with multiple trunks. I was hoping there would be some kind of nebari down there on this thicker trunk even though there is no real taper.

Having learned my lesson on the Jubilee, I opted to pot this guy into better soil right away!



This root ball was...and still is!...an incredibly dense mat of fibrous roots! I spent a long time trying to comb out roots and hunt down if there was any hint of nebari buried in there! I eventually gave up. I never even got any pictures of what I was able to dig into. I did get the roots significantly opened up for planting in better soil. To it's credit, the plant nary lost a leaf after all my abuse! Next time I'm hoping will be a more favorable time of year and I can do some serious root pruning on this guy. It took all my restraint not to tear into it now!



There are parts of the trunk I like a lot...even though there is no real taper. We'll see...this one is going to be a mess to sort out in only 5 years time...

Here are the two candidates:




We'll see! I've since gotten some new growth on the Jubilee so hopefully it will survive the winter...

 

[HorseloverFat]

Wonderful! I love these trees.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

The 'Tiny Wine' should prove to be better for small and medium bonsai than the 'Autumn Jubilee'. Nice selection.

 

[LittleDingus]

The 'Tiny Wine' should prove to be better for small and medium bonsai than the 'Autumn Jubilee'. Nice selection.

I was really anamoured with the color of new foliage on the jubilee though...if it lives through my abuse maybe it will become a landscape shrub instead.

 

[LittleDingus]

The "amber jubilee" lived through my abuse



...well, so far

I hacked this guy out of its pot and cleaned up the roots a ton and shoved it back into some NAPA 8822 and left it sit over the winter. I did bring it in the garage for about a week in February when we had couple of days that never climber above 0F and nights down near -15F. But, otherwise, it sat outside and took what nature gave...on a hacked up root system!

Now that it's starting to bud out, I took a little time and cleaned up some of the winter kill branches get rid of a few branches I won't need/don't want to open it up and simplify the structure some.

Here's where it started:



And here's where it ended up:



I'm not sure where I'll go with this one yet. There's some anthropomorphism buried in there that doesn't come across in photos well. The main trunk looks like a woman's...or maybe a mermaid's...torso with her arms in the air. I thought maybe building around that some. I'm not sure if her head will grow back at all though!

Not much use speculating now anyway...this poor shrub has been through a lot so far! Now that it's cleaned up, I don't have plans to do anything more than water it until June. Then maybe I'll clean out a little more top growth...maybe...

 

[HorseloverFat]

I reeeally like that “main trunk”s appearance in that last picture... very nice.

 

[LittleDingus]

My second ninebark is a "tiny wine". It got off a little easier back in the fall...the roots were way too dense to make much headway against and I gave up on them for the winter since it was already pretty deep into the fall. But it's alive and kicking as well



To be honest, I wasn't that worried about either of them making it through the winter. It's just nice to see them budding out so I can start getting a better look at them...

This guy got the "minor cleanup" treatment as well. Here's where it started:



Both of these trees were behind my landscaping on the way to the hose spigot. They got stepped over and on many times as I trudged back to turn the hose on when it was warm enough to use it to water the trees that needed it. It's hard to see in the picture, but several of the little branches were broken and dangling from my clumsy feet!

After some cleanup, this is what I had left:



More needs to go at some point, but I'll let it leaf out now and regain some vigor. I need to get into this guys roots again at some point since they're still a mess. Not sure yet when I'll tackle that. I think there may be an inch or so more trunk under there if I can get the roots cleaned up properly, though. And I never got anywhere near a nebari to speak of...

For now, same as the amber jubilee...sit and grow. I moved them both to a sunnier spot where they can soak it all in and leaf out to their heart's content!

 

[stu929]

I'm very split on what to do with my ninebark. It's very leggy. I picked it up because the truck looked very cool and I got it for probably 3 bucks but I don't know how well I'll be able to reduce it to keep it close to the trunk.

 

[LittleDingus]

I'm very split on what to do with my ninebark. It's very leggy. I picked it up because the truck looked very cool and I got it for probably 3 bucks but I don't know how well I'll be able to reduce it to keep it close to the trunk.

If you look closely at the pictures of the "tiny wine", you can see "knuckles" just under half way up the branches. I highlighted some of them with red arrows:



It looks like when the shrub got too large for the nursery, they took a hedge pruner to it and chopped off the top! This was done before I purchased it and not readily obvious under the foliage at the time.

You can see where a number of new branches sprouted out from the tips of those cuts. Your cultivar may react differently, but it looks like they are safe to prune back hard to me. I plan on hacking these back quite a bit when they gain some vigor. Seeing how this one was once hacked, I don't have any concerns about it not budding back.

I do have concerns that that the cuts don't look like they will heal over. And multiple buds may form and make knuckles and or disjointed branches. Large cuts may be a problem! I'm hoping that a good pruning technique and some early rubbing off of extra buds will prevent most of the knuckle from forming. I'm also hoping the shaggy bark hides the rest

Another thing to consider, the hardened growth feels very brittle. I think new growth may need to be wired pretty quickly. I tried to flex some of the existing branches in to see if they could possibly fill in some of that ugly gap the tiny wine tree has in the middle. Those branches are ~1/4" but they felt like they would snap before they bent much!

Do you have one in the native challenge? I did a quick thread search...but I may have missed it These guys look to have a lot of potential for interesting trunks but it might take a lot of collective knowledge to work through how best to handle them!

 

[LittleDingus]

I've made the poor decision of, once again, daring my 'autumn jubilee' to live! It was repotted last fall to get it out of the nursery can into decent soil. It has survived the winter and is currently budding out...so, of course, now is the best time to work the roots further and get it into a pot

Here's where we started:



A gentle tug of the trunk and the root ball came right out...no surprises there! Poor thing hasn't really had the chance to root out much since it was last repotted



But, it is a shrub and not a tree...and a suckering shrub at that!



There were 2-3 other sucker buds that I rubbed off while working the roots as well. It's a tough thing to kill. It has limits...for sure...but I don't _think_ I crossed them yet. I'm hoping not anyway.

I worked the roots down to this:



I'm really hoping there are enough feeder roots on those larger roots that they survive. I'm afraid there isn't though They don't look to me like the kind of roots that can branch new roots from anywhere. I tried to cut back the larger roots only so far as live laterals, but I'm not convinced that's going to be enough. These guys have softer wood that dries out and rots pretty quickly too. I might be losing some of that nebari...sigh...anyway I had to cut them back enough to fit them in the pot.



When all was said and done:



The pot is by @ForestInnPottery.

Texture wise, the pot brings to mind dried, cracked earth after a long drought. The tree has a flow and trunk shape and foliage coloring that bring to mind (well, my mind anyway ) a forest nymph bursting forth from the soil. I kind of enjoy the tension of the vibrant forest nymph bursting forth from the desolate drought stricken land to bring life anew. It's a major struggle that is at a delicate balance point as evidenced by how her skin dries and cracks to flutter away on the wind only to be renewed again from within. The struggle can yet go either way...

...and that's the extent of my "artsiness" I guess I'll keep my day job as a computer geek...

 

[LittleDingus]

Sigh...I'm having a hard time keeping this one hydrated It's been caught outside during a couple of late season frosts too...which I don't think are helping!

I have it in part shade since the root work that was done about a month ago. Since then it's wilted on me 3 times and got caught in a hard frost once Each time it's wilted, I've lost a bud or three.



It's still growing...and the new leaves all look good and healthy! But many of the very first leaves are brown fringed.



I have the second nine bark. It's in a larger grow bag and doing much nicer...it's even getting ready to flower It's got less interesting trunk though. Of the two, this one has a lot more character.

I went moss hunting this morning for another couple of trees. I decided to give this one a little more time and see if I could help out with the hydration issue by adding some moss to help with evaporation. It seems the tree is pulling in water...though maybe at a reduced capacity. It's been pretty windy here and it seems the pot is drying past the level the tree can suck up water. I'm hoping if I increase waterings a bit and add a layer of moss to help prevent some evaporation that the tree will do a little better.



The moss doesn't work with the arid aesthetic of the pot but right now I'm just hoping to see if it helps with the tree's recovery. I'm not looking to grow this tree any bigger so, if I cannot keep it alive in this pot, it's out It'll either die or get moved into the landscaping. If, however, I can sort out how to keep it alive in this side pot...and it starts to turn into something worth while...I can look for a new pot with some color to it and use this one for something else.

Now that I'm getting more familiar with the way these guys grow, I can see why you don't see many bonsai of them. They really are more suited as landscape interest. Given the number of more promising entries I have...and the need to reduce my collection in general this year...I've been seriously debating turning both these guys into landscape plants to focus on other interests. Which is too bad: with the nebari exposed, the bottom half of the tree is quite interesting!

 

[HorseloverFat]

In the wilderness, by me, you’ll see HUGE, half-deceased “hedges“ of these Guys, with barberry and carolina rose...

They seemed to be designed to take A TON of abuse. However, THAT means compartmentalizing LARGE sections with no “qualms” at all. This is GREAT for survival, but bad for “tinytree” purposes...

I bet that, armed with your newly acquired information, you will be able to produce a lovely ninebark specimen.

 

[LittleDingus]

In the wilderness, by me, you’ll see HUGE, half-deceased “hedges“ of these Guys, with barberry and carolina rose...

They seemed to be designed to take A TON of abuse. However, THAT means compartmentalizing LARGE sections with no “qualms” at all. This is GREAT for survival, but bad for “tinytree” purposes...

I bet that, armed with your newly acquired information, you will be able to produce a lovely ninebark specimen.

Watching them grow more closely now, fresh grown is very tender. It doesn't take much to snap a new branch clean off...I've done it several times now just bumping them with the hose on accident!

When they harden off, they're brittle!

Either side of that coin is hard to wire Which sucks because they want to grow straight up!

They almost feel more like a monocot in their growth habits to me. Soft, tender fresh growth with little integrity that hardens off into a brittle shell that breaks and splits easily.

If the internodes weren't so far apart and the budding was more reliable I can see rebuilding a canopy on top of an interesting trunk and having an ever changing tree. They don't feel like they can rebud from a bud zone, however. If each bud zone is one-and-done and the internodes are as large as they are, there's not a ton of options The tree either has to get leggy or it needs to sucker a new trunk. Both are problematic

I'm not giving up quite yet...it's still early in the game! Ninebark is a very new to me species. We didn't have them in Illinois where I lived most of my life. I've only recently begun noticing them here in Missouri...mostly because of this challenge! But, it is one a short leash

 

[LittleDingus]

I went out of town for week and came back to a few dead trees The 'amber jubilee' was one of them.

The 'tiny wine' I also picked up is still alive and well...but I think I'm just going to put it into the landscape for the next owners. We are hoping to move next spring and there's not enough interesting about the 'tiny wine' that it's worth moving.

I should have been more careful with the 'amber jubilee'...I did like the base of that one quite a bit. Still not sure the top could have been turned into anything interesting...but the base was nice.

I hate orphaned threads when I can avoid them...so consider this an official "close" to this one.