Robinia pseudoacacia progression

[PiñonJ]

I collected this tree from my office landscaping two years ago. It was a volunteer from seed from our landscape Purple Robe Locusts. It was about five feet tall, growing in poor soil over hard pan with no irrigation. The roots spread laterally and only went to about eight inches in depth, thanks to the hard pan.
28 March 2015:



A couple weeks later, in its grow box:

 

[PiñonJ]

Here are the first buds in April 2015, which promptly died in a freeze.



Then this happened.


And this is how it looked in June 2015.

 

[PiñonJ]

I picked a leader and did an angled trunk chop.


Went back in July and carved the chop a little to promote better wound healing.

 

[PiñonJ]

11 April 2016 I repotted into a bonsai pot with diatomaceous earth (NAPA 8822), pumice and lava, 3:1:1. The root system was very healthy, with lots of little spherical rhizomes.

17 April 2016:

 

[PiñonJ]

I did a little structural wiring last year, but I did a full wiring and styling this spring. The tree bloomed for the first time in its life and, as you can see, the flowers are creamy white, not magenta like the parent trees.


They have a wonderful fragrance.

Unfortunately, it was windy the day I styled it, and even in my courtyard there were eddies. I just could not get a photo where the compound leaves were not being lifted, sort of ruining the umbrella outline!
Here's the back:

And the front:

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

that is nice for such a young tree. Keep us posted as it develops. I have had trouble keeping one going when I tried. Yours seems to be adapting quite well.

 

[PiñonJ]

that is nice for such a young tree. Keep us posted as it develops. I have had trouble keeping one going when I tried. Yours seems to be adapting quite well.

Yes, it is thriving here. Maybe your climate is just too much for them. I don't take heroic steps to protect it in the winter. I just bury the pot and mulch the top. We usually get into single digits for a few days, rarely below zero.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

I don't think my problem is as simple as climate, the species here is a wildly invasive weed here. But once in a pot, they fade away on me. I'll figure it out one day, they are cool.

 

[petegreg]

I've got one potted, and they seem to be bulletproof. They dislike being completely drought and those horticulture. oil spray applications. This winter it experienced three weeks down to -20℃, just put on my balcony without any visible harm. From my observations, they grow well, close wounds slowly but well, bud back on old wood/trunk and tend to drop shaded branchelets. The only "disease" has been spider mites here... Closing leaves at night and when it's too hot with direct sunlight.

 

[Tieball]

I collected this tree from my office landscaping two years ago. It was a volunteer from seed from our landscape Purple Robe Locusts. It was about five feet tall, growing in poor soil over hard pan with no irrigation. The roots spread laterally and only went to about eight inches in depth, thanks to the hard pan.
28 March 2015:
View attachment 148814
View attachment 148813
View attachment 148813 View attachment 148815
A couple weeks later, in its grow box:
View attachment 148816

Yup!......Now that's definitely some hard, dry, cracking soil.

 

[Tieball]

Are you able to bend branches on a tree like this?

 

[PiñonJ]

Are you able to bend branches on a tree like this?

Yes, without much trouble.

 

[PiñonJ]

I restyled this tree last night, taking inspiration from a tree at my office which has lost major branches.
Here’s the landscape tree:

I removed the hemline branch, created a shari and set a new front.

Then I re-wired it.

 

[PiñonJ]

@Tiebal, you asked about bending branches. Well, I found the limit! That big branch on the left snapped when I bent it up. I cleaned it up a little and put cut past on the side with the break. We'll see how it does.

 

[PiñonJ]

@Tiebal, you asked about bending branches. Well, I found the limit! That big branch on the left snapped when I bent it up. I cleaned it up a little and put cut past on the side with the break. We'll see how it does.

@Tieball , posting again, because somehow, your tag didn't work in the last one. Ah... I see what happened. I erased the last 'l'.

 

[PiñonJ]

I re-potted it into the same pot this spring, setting a new front, then I pruned the branches, tightening the silhouette. After all the work, it only put out two small racemes of flowers. Interestingly, the roots, though plentiful (it was pushing up out of the pot and there was about a half inch of root mat under the aeration layer), didn't have any of the nitrogen-fixing nodules that it had coming out of the grow box.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

really nice,
not a species often seen. You and Chris @coh are the only two I remembering having much luck with them. I've had a string of failures.

 

[PiñonJ]

really nice,
not a species often seen. You and Chris @coh are the only two I remembering having much luck with them. I've had a string of failures.

Thanks! I wonder why they haven't worked for you. Mine hasn't been finicky at all. I've read that they hate shade. Could that be an issue?
BTW, forgot to mention in my last post that I planted it in pure akadama for the first time this year, 1/16" - 1/4".

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Thanks! I wonder why they haven't worked for you. Mine hasn't been finicky at all. I've read that they hate shade. Could that be an issue?
BTW, forgot to mention in my last post that I planted it in pure akadama for the first time this year, 1/16" - 1/4".

I honestly don't know why, given they are everywhere in the landscape near me, one in my neighbor's yard that has root suckers popping up in my yard every summer. You would think they would thrive.

I have a new thought that I need to test. I am a firm believer that chemical fertilizers are the preferred way to grow. I don't bother with organics. Robinia is a nitrogen fixing species, uses bacteria to do it. Perhaps when I try again, I will simply quit fertilizing this one. If I give it anything, it will just be a little kelp seaweed extract and or composted leaves. See how that goes. I am just whistling in the dark, no clue if that really has anything to do with anything. But could be my high nitrogen, high nitrate fertilizers upset their microbial balance, then again it might have nothing to do with it. Time will tell, first I need to find a new victim.

 

[coh]

really nice,
not a species often seen. You and Chris @coh are the only two I remembering having much luck with them. I've had a string of failures.

The only "success" I've had with them is in the ground. I had one in a container for a while, then sunk the container in the ground to allow the roots to escape. So far I haven't tried to maintain one in a container for any length of time.

Right now I have 3 in my yard that might be containerized at some point. The original large tree that is in the sunken container (referenced above), but that one really doesn't have a good base. It might just get planted out in the back field somewhere. There are 2 smaller ones that originated as root suckers from the larger plant. I have successfully transplanted them but don't know if the root systems are any good (they're probably one sided). I've been pruning/cutting these back and they have structures that could be interesting as bonsai but honestly, I'm kind of losing interest in these low-chance kind of projects. Too much to do and not enough time (plus back problems). I will post an update if I ever do get one of these into a container.

Good luck with them! They are wonderful in bloom.