Home Depot Crape

[QuintinBonsai]

I was at Home Depot, and they had many potential bonsai material for sale. Lots of Japanese Maples, Cedars, Crape Myrtles, etc. I really wanted to get myself one of their maples. Some had really thick trunks. I'm guessing maybe 6in. in diameter on some. They did have a few problems though. One being their pots were too large. Too large for my little car. Their height was well over 6ft. Also again too large for my car. I wanted to ask them if I purchased a maple could it be pruned. I figured I'd get some strange looks if I tried that so I just avoided the matter lol.

Anyways, I chose a smaller tree to take home. I chose the crape myrtle. When I got it home i did some pruning on it, and reduced it's massive rootball. Not too much of a flare at the trunk base, but it does have many white feeder roots. I used it's original nursery pot as a temporary pot. Just sawed the pot down to size.

It wasn't a huge investment at all. Only $18. But keep in mind that the tree was much larger than what the current pictures show. So what do you guys think? I am open to suggestions, crape myrtle bonsai care, as well as constructive feedback.

 

[Joedes3]

How you doing with the tree? I was thinking about trying this myself.
Joe

 

[Zach Smith]

Good start. The branches you've left may be too stiff for bending, but you could use grow and clip to chase them back in and give more flexibility for shaping. I'd let the tree recover from the pruning, then do some wiring/shaping going into fall. Next year you should get tons of growth, and you'll be able to make a lot of progress on training this little guy.

Keep us posted.

Zach

 

[jkd2572]

I have trunk chopped a 25 foot tall tree down to four feet a large nursury before. The then had to fork lift the 60 gallon pot into my truck. Crape m grow like weeds so that is a good one to start with.

 

[rockm]

Who cares about strange looks? More than likely you will get genuine curiosity from the sellers about what bonsai is (settle on the price, however, BEFORE discussing bonsai and the fate of the plant you're buying)

Don't sweat hacking off the top two thirds of the tree AT THE PLACE OF PURCHASE. I, like Jeremy, have reduced a 25 to 30 foot bald cypress to three feet while digging it out of a local nursery's beds. Had to chop the root mass by 95 percent too...Lopping the top and reducing the roots voided the warranty, but the workers helped me do it. They really didn't care. I'd paid for the tree.

"As is" height has no be.aring on my selections at nursery's (within reason--anything over 50 feet probably has a trunk that's too large anyway)

 

[jkd2572]

like this.

 

[milehigh_7]

In fact I have taken to bringing my saw with me when I go on my bargain hunts.

 

[QuintinBonsai]

The tree is doing very well. There are many new shoots just popping out everywhere. That is something that really amazed me is the abundance of new growth it's put on.

 

[xray360]

Hi. There is home depot by me as well that had large maples for around 40 dollars. I'm going to go back in the fall to see if they have a sale on them. I want to do a trunk cut but can you cut down past the branches were there is no growth??? Sometimes there are small buds so would those begin to make new leader/branches? These were like lolly pops with long trunk so the first branches were about 4 feet up already.

 

[markreeve]

The thing I would check is that the top growth is not grafted onto a different rootstock just below the 4 foot point where the current branches eminate. If this is the case you would get new shoots but they wont be of the same cultivar and probably have differnt leaves from the ones you originally bought the tree for.

 

[jk_lewis]

On the crape myrtle, remember that anything you cut off will root as a cutting, no matter the size, so you can cut that long, straight lower branch by 1/2 or more, and make a tree out of the part you cut off.

 

[xray360]

On the crape myrtle, remember that anything you cut off will root as a cutting, no matter the size, so you can cut that long, straight lower branch by 1/2 or more, and make a tree out of the part you cut off.

What if you air layer the middle of the trunk so that 1/3rd up you start your branches???

 

[QuintinBonsai]

Here is an update on that crape myrtle. It's doing really good, and has been growing like a weed! The new shoots are still too tender to do any kind of wiring, so I think it's best that I wait until they harden up. Let me know what you guys think.

As it looked June 25th.



As it looks August, 31st.

 

[edprocoat]

Looks good, I bought a Tonto Crepe? or Crape myrtle. Everyone spells crepe differently, as a matter of fact the nursery tag plastic wrap on the branch said crepe while the printed tag on the pot said crape. Anyway its supposed to be a smaller version this thing was about 4 feet tall and had well over 200 buds on it back in the middle of july when I bought it. I left it alone to see the reddish flowers, and a week later it had dozens of blooms. I hacked it down leaving just one little low branch before I had to go to my uncles funeral last week as I wanted to give it a chance to recover before winter comes. Mine was $29 though, but if it grows out and I can get the size down like I plan it will be nice. Yours looks real good !

ed

 

[JudyB]

It's looking good. Don't wait till the branches harden up to wire them. Use the "baby bending" technique on those small branches, and you'll be glad later on...

 

[edprocoat]

It's looking good. Don't wait till the branches harden up to wire them. Use the "baby bending" technique on those small branches, and you'll be glad later on...

Yeah my Tonto is very brittle, I tried to bend a small branch up top that had flowers on it just to see how it would respond, it snapped off with hardly any flexibility. I assume it will have to be bent while the branches are very young and green.

ed

 

[leatherback]

[funny to see how all bonsai artists are the same. Also guilty of chopping a tree down at the point of purchase & carrying a saw with me when visiting nurseries]