Species Study - Taxodium distichum

Cajunrider said:
So I got this tree from the swamp, split it to 4, whittled each piece thin and tapered, taped them together, nailed the roots to a board. Then I attempted to twist the tree. Only got 1/3rd of a turn. I will let the tree recover and try more later.
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I will have to create some crank handles on the trunk to twist it harder.
 
Drcuisine said:
Thank you for a solid summary of growing bald cypress.

Personally, I grow mine standing in water all year around and I don’t have to worry about the trees drying out.

One thing I’ve not done, but your post reminded me of it was to screw a board to the base of the tree the way we sometimes due to
Maples. The technique is basically to shave all the roots as flat as possible. Take approximately an eight or 10 inch round piece of plywood. Drill a hole in the center and put a large cap screw through the hole and screwed into the base of the trunk, forcing The roots to grow horizontally along the wood. The piece of wood entry is that buried in soil, or in my case would just be placed in the water

The trees are very forgiving for root pruning just like you showed in the pictures.

You seem to know more about these streets than I do but the one thing I would add is don’t forget the other species in this genius
Esp Taxodium mucronatum. There are some distinct differences, and I personally like the Montezuma or Mexican bald Cyprus slightly better.

I think the Bonsai community still has a lot to learn about these trees.

Initially the flat top style seem to dominate and preferred Bonsai style, but there are now many different bonsai forms Of the tree.

I was particularly fascinated by what Andrew Robinson did with history.

I believe there is a YouTube video where he shows the tree.

Thinking outside the box is good and I think andrew has that skill. Though that tree will need a decade to develop appropriate branches.

Finally I included a picture of what looks like a small BC “knee”. I think in reality it formed because of being grown in a constricted pot which forced the root to create a bump. I know having knees on bonsai BC is pretty uncommon so I’ll take it. The tree is in a forest composition I built this spring. My first forest so it is what it is. Next time I will ask my teacher to help when I make a forest composition.

Thank you again for your post,

Mats
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I have a decent size mucronatum that has its own progression thread and a bunch of cuttings.
 
Has anyone grown or know where you can find some seedlings of the Taxodium ‘NANJING BEAUTY’?

It’s a hybrid cross of the bald cypress and Montezuma cypress that was crossed in China during the 80s.
Apparently it grows faster than the BC, longer foliage retention in winter and fall, and doesn’t grow knees.

Would be fun to grow
 
Damart81 said:
Has anyone grown or know where you can find some seedlings of the Taxodium ‘NANJING BEAUTY’?

It’s a hybrid cross of the bald cypress and Montezuma cypress that was crossed in China during the 80s.
Apparently it grows faster than the BC, longer foliage retention in winter and fall, and doesn’t grow knees.

Would be fun to grow
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I have been looking for a long time. There is no reliable source I can find in North America.
 
I took stock of all my experiments. Lots of successes and a few failures. Now I wonder if anyone would buy those experiment trees 😄😃
 
...so we are all agree that submerge in the water cause the buttress to flare?
 
namnhi said:
...so we are all agree that submerge in the water cause the buttress to flare?
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From some things and experiments that I am working on now, there is one more factor... you need to let the roots R U N! The problem is that when you do that you don't get that many feeder roots close to the tree, so come time to cut them off you are almost creating a huge cutting. I'm waiting for some seedlings I have going on now to harden off so cut the roots and move them into another container. hopefully they will survive. I think a safer move is to do this when they go dormant, but careful protection from freezing would be needed to not kill the new roots.

I will try to get a pic when I get home, kind of a mess right now as I miss the mark for repotting.
 
Maiden69 said:
From some things and experiments that I am working on now, there is one more factor... you need to let the roots R U N! The problem is that when you do that you don't get that many feeder roots close to the tree, so come time to cut them off you are almost creating a huge cutting
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I wonder if you could combine this with something like a top half bare root to prepare feeder roots near the soil surface.
 
pandacular said:
I wonder if you could combine this with something like a top half bare root to prepare feeder roots near the soil surface.
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not in my case... all the seedlings where planted through a stainless fender washer, so all the roots are on the top part of the container.
 
namnhi said:
...so we are all agree that submerge in the water cause the buttress to flare?
Click to expand...
Well, just to be clear in terminology.
For me,
Flare = drastic change in diameter from the trunk to the root base. This will happen when the BC is in a lot of water, the tree responds to the soft, unstable ground by flaring out, not unlike a fighter widening his stance to establish his stability. We can get flare whether the tree is in pot or in the swamp. Other method for establishing taper such as sacrifice branch etc. works as well.
Flute/Buttress = Big "veins" that run from a root all the way up the trunk. This happens mostly on BCs in the swamp where the roots have room to run and the wide base runs the roots all the way up the trunk. I think this is difficult to simulate when the BC is grown in a regular size container.

Stay tuned. I will do a BC "butt plug" to improve flare in this thread.
 
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Cajunrider said:
Well, just to be clear in terminology.
For me,
Flare = drastic change in diameter from the trunk to the root base. This will happen when the BC is in a lot of water, the tree responds to the soft, unstable ground by flaring out, not unlike a fighter widening his stance to establish his stability. We can get flare whether the tree is in pot or in the swamp. Other method for establishing taper such as sacrifice branch etc. works as well.
Flute/Buttress = Big "veins" that run from a root all the way up the trunk. This happens mostly on BCs in the swamp where the roots have room to run and the wide base runs the roots all the way up the trunk. I think this is difficult to simulate when the BC is grown in a regular size container.

Stay tuned. I will do a BC "butt plug" to improve flare in this thread.
Click to expand...
Me to the BC
This is for the best. If you are still butt-hurt about it when you grow up, I’ll be waiting.
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