Palo Verde

pablo

pablo

Yamadori
Messages
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Location
Las Vegas
USDA Zone
9a
Hey Everyone,

I read an article about some unique trees here in the Mojave Desert, Palo Verde: https://tucson.com/lifestyles/home-...cle_97a067ef-f782-5f1a-9d5d-eead61d81fdf.html. Curious to know if anyone in the area has had any luck with these? These trees are super common in the Vegas are with plenty for sale in either seeds or more developed from nurseries.
 

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pablo said:
Hey Everyone,

I read an article about some unique trees here in the Mojave Desert, Palo Verde: https://tucson.com/lifestyles/home-...cle_97a067ef-f782-5f1a-9d5d-eead61d81fdf.html. Curious to know if anyone in the area has had any luck with these? These trees are super common in the Vegas are with plenty for sale in either seeds or more developed from nurseries.
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Reminds me of my Shishigashira JM with different foliage. Interesting.
 
Just saw this. I picked seeds off a tree on a trip to Arizona earlier in the year. Germination was easy enough - just a little clip of the seed and soaked in boiling water for a day. I had a high success rate with germination and ruined a bunch trying to manually remove the seed coat from the seedlings (don't do that). Three made it. They seem to be loving life in my indoor grow tent and are almost 2 feet tall and lanky. Just started getting some secondary branching. Once the weather gets nicer here I will bring them out. Driving around in Arizona, there were plenty of nurseries selling larger palo verde - if I wasn't getting on a plane home I would have purchased one. Not sure how they will do in NY, but they should do great in Vegas. As a bonsai subject, I do not know enough about it yet to make a decision. They grow long, wispy branches and, of course, they may be leafless for much of the year by you. I don't know yet how they respond to pruning. They seem to easily grow multiple trunks. Definitely worth playing around with.
 
dbonsaiw said:
Just saw this. I picked seeds off a tree on a trip to Arizona earlier in the year. Germination was easy enough - just a little clip of the seed and soaked in boiling water for a day. I had a high success rate with germination and ruined a bunch trying to manually remove the seed coat from the seedlings (don't do that). Three made it. They seem to be loving life in my indoor grow tent and are almost 2 feet tall and lanky. Just started getting some secondary branching. Once the weather gets nicer here I will bring them out. Driving around in Arizona, there were plenty of nurseries selling larger palo verde - if I wasn't getting on a plane home I would have purchased one. Not sure how they will do in NY, but they should do great in Vegas. As a bonsai subject, I do not know enough about it yet to make a decision. They grow long, wispy branches and, of course, they may be leafless for much of the year by you. I don't know yet how they respond to pruning. They seem to easily grow multiple trunks. Definitely worth playing around with.
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Nice! Thanks for sharing. Yes there are plenty of options for getting from nurseries even yamadori, lol. I’ll get my hands on something here soon and post some pictures. I read that there is a problem with branches going dead if not cut a certain way. I’ll follow up on this string as well with my experiences.
 
dbonsaiw said:
Didn't know that.
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Yeah here is a snip from the article that I read about some folks growing these in AZ:

tucson.com

Bonsai takes on a desert twist in Tucson

Tucsonans experiment with native and other arid plants as Bonsai canvases.
tucson.com tucson.com

"Noseck, president of the Tucson Bonsai Society and a grower for nine years, is partial to palo verde because of its green trunk and branches. “They’re so beautiful,” he says.


But because the tree grows differently from, say, a Japanese maple, growing it as a bonsai requires a bit of adjustment.
As it matures, a palo verde grows a long taproot that runs deep into the ground. The maple’s roots tend to remain close to the surface.

In season, a palo verde quickly grows branches and leaves, which then require a lot of pruning. If pruned in the wrong season or incorrectly, the tree will make the cut branch die off. Maples grow more slowly and better tolerate pruning.

These differences cause constant problems when trying to shape the palo verde into its full-size appearance.

“I get terrible dieback,” says Noseck. “The bark is very hard to wire.”
McLean says he’s constantly having to cut back new palo verde growth that shoots straight up from main branches in its attempt to get to its regular size. “They do not like to be in pots,” he says.

But the two keep trying. Noseck pots a palo verde seedling before it can grow much of a taproot.
McLean discovered that if he used a craft knife to cut the branches into points, cutting it the way a critter would when it eats the tree, that seems to make the tree less likely to die back."
 
pablo said:
“I get terrible dieback,”
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Ugh. Well, at least I also took some Texas Ebony seeds. I'm growing the palo verde really for shits and giggles and don't have a great amount of hope that I can be successful with them here in NY. It appears to be a hard bonsai subject in the first place. I really like deciduous trees as well as those in the Fabaceae family and PV combines them both - but I may have bit off more than I can chew with this species. I will use one/two of the PVs as a guinea pig - I will remove the tap root, repot and see what happens. If it dies, I'll try not to do the same things on the next one. Hopefully, I'll have at least one extra to play around with pruning and then one for actual development. If not, it's back to the vachelia caven for me.
 
dbonsaiw said:
Ugh. Well, at least I also took some Texas Ebony seeds. I'm growing the palo verde really for shits and giggles and don't have a great amount of hope that I can be successful with them here in NY. It appears to be a hard bonsai subject in the first place. I really like deciduous trees as well as those in the Fabaceae family and PV combines them both - but I may have bit off more than I can chew with this species. I will use one/two of the PVs as a guinea pig - I will remove the tap root, repot and see what happens. If it dies, I'll try not to do the same things on the next one. Hopefully, I'll have at least one extra to play around with pruning and then one for actual development. If not, it's back to the vachelia caven for me.
Click to expand...
Nice! Texas Ebony would be very interesting to see as well! Out here there are lots of those and Mesquite. There is also a lot of of Afghan Pine but definitely the PV is the most interesting IMO.
 
pablo said:
Nice! Texas Ebony would be very interesting to see as well! Out here there are lots of those and Mesquite. There is also a lot of of Afghan Pine but definitely the PV is the most interesting IMO.
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I've got an Afghan pine but have no idea how to deal with it. And it's growing rapidly so I need to figure that out.

Also, there are quite a few Palo Verde trees around here, mostly in parking lots. They are quite beautiful.
 
milehigh_7 said:
There are so many great desert trees. As soon as I get time I am going to start a thread just to introduce some of them.
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Nice, would love to see the different species.
 
Wulfskaar said:
I've got an Afghan pine but have no idea how to deal with it. And it's growing rapidly so I need to figure that out.

Also, there are quite a few Palo Verde trees around here, mostly in parking lots. They are quite beautiful.
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They are. How does that Afghan pine look? They look great around our area, just haven't seen a Bonsai.
 
pablo said:
They are. How does that Afghan pine look? They look great around our area, just haven't seen a Bonsai.
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I got it as a seedling less than 2 years ago, so it's not really bonsai yet. It has grown A LOT since then!

I'd like to make a formal upright style with it, making it look like an old pine, but I'm not sure where to start. I should probably start a new thread on it.

August 2022
IMG_20220825_141254.jpg

April 2024
20240427_113047.jpg
 
Wulfskaar said:
I got it as a seedling less than 2 years ago, so it's not really bonsai yet. It has grown A LOT since then!

I'd like to make a formal upright style with it, making it look like an old pine, but I'm not sure where to start. I should probably start a new thread on it.

August 2022
View attachment 543743

April 2024
View attachment 543748
Click to expand...
Nice. Definitely growing and getting bigger. Would love to see the progress on this one.
 
Wulfskaar said:
Turns out I already made a thread for it that I had forgotten about. 🥴
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I found it! I'll keep an eye out on that thread for progress. I'm trying to see what project I'll be starting here soon with some local desert tree species that are common in this area.
 
If you are in an experimenting mood, check out manzanita and mesquite as well.
 
dbonsaiw said:
If you are in an experimenting mood, check out manzanita and mesquite as well.
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Agreed, I've seen a few posts about the chilean mesquite. I have both a chilean and a palo verde in my back yard now.
 
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