Acacia tree bending help

[Kynewt]

I Picked up this Acacia bonsai today. This is my first tree that did not have an established bend to it. I was wondering if anyone has any experience bending this tree? I was thinking about trying to split the trunk and wiring some more aesthetic curve to it so it doesn’t look so much like a “stick in some dirt”. Does anyone have any advise to make this tree look a little more unique?

 

[Kynewt]

Also, can this bonsai survive indoors? Or will it need to be outside?

 

[Forsoothe!]

Please go to the upper right hand corner, click on your Icon, and fill in your location so advice can be tailored to your local conditions.

Next, you need to provide a description of the conditions you will be keeping it in: outdoors always or summer only; indoors with window exposure, etc. If this tree is going to be sitting on this table as shown in the middle of a room it's gonna die, whether it looks like a telephone pole or John Naka champion.

 

[penumbra]

Let me say this. I tried one time to bend a branch on an acacia and I will never do it again. Snap! It wasn't even that much a bend I was trying to get.
So in vengence, I am now growing some acacia seedlings, and I will put a few crazy kinks in them.

 

[Carol 83]

I got a Rabbit's Foot Acacia early this spring, when it was too cold here to go outside. It limped along. Once I got it outside it exploded with growth. I repotted it today as it was really potbound. It was a tough repot, just a tangle of congested roots, with a knot of thick roots directly under the trunk. I had to put in a deeper pot than I had planned, because all the feeder roots were attached to the big ones. Hopefully it will make it, I love the leaves and the craggy looking bark.

 

[Kynewt]

Please go to the upper right hand corner, click on your Icon, and fill in your location so advice can be tailored to your local conditions.

Next, you need to provide a description of the conditions you will be keeping it in: outdoors always or summer only; indoors with window exposure, etc. If this tree is going to be sitting on this table as shown in the middle of a room it's gonna die, whether it looks like a telephone pole or John Naka champion.

Please go to the upper right hand corner, click on your Icon, and fill in your location so advice can be tailored to your local conditions.

Next, you need to provide a description of the conditions you will be keeping it in: outdoors always or summer only; indoors with window exposure, etc. If this tree is going to be sitting on this table as shown in the middle of a room it's gonna die, whether it looks like a telephone pole or John Naka champion.

i wanted to keep it indoors(maybe for at least the summer) but am worried about how it will survive. It does not live on that table. I have a large east facing bay window in my apartment. I have other bonsais in that window on a bench that have been doing very well with sunlight.

 

[Forsoothe!]

OK, whether or not the Acacia will be OK there remains to be seen. It is an unusual apartment plant, but maybe somebody has experience with it.

 

[jason biggs]

i'm sure you will be able to make a flat top with that tree., clip and grow is the way to go.
bending that trunk will only end in tears.
doesn't look like an african acacia - what is the latin name?
might be an albizia...

 

[fredman]

i'm sure you will be able to make a flat top with that tree., clip and grow is the way to go.
bending that trunk will only end in tears.
doesn't look like an african acacia - what is the latin name?
might be an albizia...

I agree...it's not an acacia. The trunk looks to thick to bend. I'll do a flat top if that was mine

 

[penumbra]

Does it have spines? I am not sure in the picture. Acacia have spines.

 

[fredman]

Does it have spines? I am not sure in the picture. Acacia have spines.

Not all Acacia has thorns....Australia has more Acacia species than Africa, but none has thorns.
Sadly the genus has all been split up now...very little Acacias left. Damn bureaucrats...Africa is Acacia and Acacia is Africa. An Acacia isn't an Acacia when it hasn't got thorns !!!

 

[Starfox]

You need to let it go man, lol

Say after me, Vachellia and Senegalia

 

[fredman]

You need to let it go man, lol

Say after me, Vachellia and Senegalia

Ah no...not you again
LOL...old times

 

[Shibui]

The Australian species will always be acacias no matter what the boffins decide. Acacia is our national floral emblem!
While most Aussie species are not prickly there are a few that have sharp thorns and a few that have very sharp points on each leaf so while not actually thorny still quite painful. One is called dead finish because it grows in impenetrable clumps and has needle like leaves.
The tree shown here does not look like any of the Australian species I am aware of.

 

[fredman]

Ah man believe me..one hasn't seen an Acacia if you haven't been in the aura of an African Acacia. They are majestic trees....and the thorns are what makes them an Acacia. From the up to 9" spike of the karoo, the triple little hook thorns of the 'drie doring' (three thorn), to the multipled thorns of the famous tortillis that spans the savanna with it's flat crowns. They have spine and hook shaped thorns combined...fascinating. When they hook you...you stay hooked .
There ain't an Acacia in Africa that don't have it's characteristical thorn. Acacias with hooked thorns generally has longish cylindrical shaped flowers, while spiked thorn ones has ball shaped flowers.
I love all trees, but nothing compares to an African Acacia.
I have 4 big Aussie Acacias in my back yard (beautiful trees) and every time I look at them I wonder why they are called Acacia (although their wood is almost as hard as the African ones).
The very word Acacia means "Thorny"...but the bureaucrats decided to call all African Acacias, NON Acacia....Crazy
Sorry...it's been a few years since my last rant...guess @Starfox opened up the wound.

 

[Kynewt]

Ah man believe me..one hasn't seen an Acacia if you haven't been in the aura of an African Acacia. They are majestic trees....and the thorns are what makes them an Acacia. From the up to 9" spike of the karoo, the triple little hook thorns of the 'drie doring' (three thorn), to the multipled thorns of the famous tortillis that spans the savanna with it's flat crowns. They have spine and hook shaped thorns combined...fascinating. When they hook you...you stay hooked .
There ain't an Acacia in Africa that don't have it's characteristical thorn. Acacias with hooked thorns generally has longish cylindrical shaped flowers, while spiked thorn ones has ball shaped flowers.
I love all trees, but nothing compares to an African Acacia.
I have 4 big Aussie Acacias in my back yard (beautiful trees) and every time I look at them I wonder why they are called Acacia (although their wood is almost as hard as the African ones).
The very word Acacia means "Thorny"...but the bureaucrats decided to call all African Acacias, NON Acacia....Crazy
Sorry...it's been a few years since my last rant...guess @Starfox opened up the wound.

There are currently no thorns on this tree but if it helps the leaflets to fold in during night time.

 

[butlern]

Surprised it's not more supple with capacity to be wired. I have an acacia that I believe is Acacia smallii, but if someone has other perspectives on how to properly identify, I am all ears.

It was being trained as a sinewy flat top, but I let it get away from me over the past 3 years and now it's just really tall and lanky... could use some heavy pruning and additional compaction.

I've also found that some large branches die from time-to-time... so what was originally and formally a twin trunk has now become/is becoming more of a clump

Some photos that show progression from August 2017, March 2018 and now July 2020 (bigger pot in 2019).

 

[Forsoothe!]

Lemme tell you a story about Acacia. 20 years ago when I was new to bonsai, I liked the form and wanted one. I was going to Florida for a vacation and studied up on species, hoping to gather some seeds. I made a list of 10 good prospects and wandered around Naples and Ft. Myers looking for candidates. I found many varieties, but couldn't positively ID ANY of them because there were so many and they ALL had very similar but different pods. I came to the conclusion that had to be in flower, or else. The real upshot is that there are so many, and so many of them have a description that is almost interchangeable, that ID is problematic without seeing the flower, foliage, spines and the pod. I did buy a Huascache (Sweet Acacia, Acacia farnesiana)...

And don't forget Tamarind, Lysiloma, Poincianna, Mesquite, Desert Cassia, Desert Featherbush, Texas Ebony, Siberian Peashrub and BRT are all common in bonsai.

 

[sorce]

@fredman I was with you then, and I'm with you now.

They wouldn't have changed the name if they got hooked!

Sorce

 

[sorce]

Sorry OP.

Welcome to Crazy!

Sorce