Why I love the Primo arborvitae
- Thread starter MMJNICE
- Start date
bnw
Seedling
Thank you. After you asked about YouTube I realized that your username looked familiar - thanks for watching and commenting and the super glue tip.Yup I thought that Primo looked familiar... i like the videos and the content very much. I think you have a video on regular thuja that I thought you did a really good job on as well
Yes, I styled three Degroot's Spire thujas in some of my most recent videos. I'm looking forward to potting them together this spring.
doc spring _work
Shohin
Been considering Arborvitae for bonsai recently.. I've never seen this variety before though! The tiny leaves are fantastic- do they handle zone 4-5 well? The local nursery (former employer) only really had columnar varieties such as dagroot's spire ECT. Would dagroot reduce anywhere near the same or do I need to look for this particular variety and start growing it for later foliage replacement/grafting
bnw
Seedling
Arborvitae is a great species for zones 4-5 - they're native in those climate zones. The cold hardiness chart in Bonsai Heresy lists Thuja occidentalis the species as having a root kill temperature of -5 F, and two Thuja occidentalis cultivars as having root kill temperatures of 5 deg F. So very cold hardy. Just to be safe, since my Primos are in small pots, I provide protection when temperatures go below 15 deg F.
Degroot's Spire and Primo are much different varieties. The Primo has extremely fine foliage whereas Degroot's Spire is much more like the species. So Primo would work well for mame and shohin, but I would never try to make an extremely small bonsai out of Degroot's Spire.
doc spring _work
Shohin
MMJNICE
Shohin
Wondering if you did any root work like maybe cutting a ugly surface root? That could have caused it if it was attached by a life line running up the trunk. That seems to have happened to me on one of my larger trees. Also would be interested if that would cause part of your trunk to die like my tree, especially since you said it was a rather thick branch with lots of foliage. Thuja do seem to have a lot of deadwood when collected in the wild so it makes sense.
MMJNICE
Shohin
bnw
Seedling
I did a quick search and found quite a few places that sell them, although most places are sold out. Looks like they are available here: https://twogreenthumbs.com/pages/about-janit from Seattle. They come from Iseli Nursery in Oregon, so the closer you get to Oregon, the more available they will be. I got mine from a nursery in Washington.
bnw
Seedling
I definitely cut some roots, and that might have caused it, but I can't recall cutting any major roots. My thought at the time was that perhaps I wired it too heavily - since it was a large branch, I used a bit more force to bend it downward. But more importantly, I wired it in early summer, which I understand now to not be a dangerous time to wire, as the cambium is really active; I think I caused slippage/damage to that branch by wiring during the wrong time of year.
MMJNICE
Shohin
So a couple of updates,, the primo's i have in the hazelnut clay pot that i made btw.. I wasn't happy with the direction and styling so I'm airlayering the top off and keeping the bottom sections as a massive broom shohin tree. The top will make a cool tree as well. But the bottom will really be impressive when I put it in a much smaller pot. The trees seem to handle root pruning well so i don't think it will be a problem considering half the tree will be gone anyway. I also finally figured out a design for my last larger primo in the nursery container. I'm not sure if I'm going to repot this tree come spring time because it's growth doesn't seem a health as all my other trees. Something about the foliage seems weaker and less full. But I may change my mind who knows. I do like the design but I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with the lower double trunk. I'm open to opinions. You really can't see the double trunk in the pictures but it's still there. 
MMJNICE
Shohin
Just and update on one of my little thuja. This one is one of my favorites because of the root base. It's very wide and spreading and at this point it has grown a lot since I first got the tree and a lot since I've been posting about all my primo. I started watching videos on sekki hanoki and how to train them effectively and one technique is to attach a grid frame under the pot and use that as a kinda jig and attach wires to the branches to bring them down and spread out the canopy allowing more light to penetrate into the tree there by getting finer branching and also to further develop the branching that I do have. It seems to work really well and I think It will get the trees I do have to develop much faster. Just Wanted to show people what I'm doing because this cultivar is relatively new and techniques for training haven't been hammered out as of yet. I've already done the same training aid to my valavanis cypress and it looks much better, I have a thread on that tree as well. As far as this thuja I'm going to have to repot the tree because the front needs adjusting to the wider root spread and the canopy looks better from the new front as well.
bnw
Seedling
Great styling and choice for front - it's a very convincing tree. The grid frame is a good idea.
MMJNICE
Shohin
Thanks.. I really like the smaller tree's because they almost always have a 6 to 1 height to trunk thickens ratio and as most know is that John guy's ratio for a perfect bonsai Proportion. They are all mostly 3/4th thick and under 6 inches in hight so I'd say it's pretty close to that proportion or smack dead on it.
bnw
Seedling
Ha ha, I'm not sure who "that John guy" is but I've heard this rule from Harry Harrington too; maybe he got it from that John guy? Seems like a sound rule to follow if the goal is a mature looking tree. I've read elsewhere (can't remember where) that this can be relaxed to 10:1 with similar results. The interesting thing about this ratio is that most of the trees that I observe in nature aren't even close to this ratio, so it's very much just a bonsai thing.
MMJNICE
Shohin
new training pot for my thuja occidentalis primo the large ssecondary trunk is still attached i can't bring myself to cut it off for some reason... idk I kinda like it and kinda don't i did kinda style it to look like a slender fir tree out in the mountains somewhere.
doc spring _work
Shohin
I definitely see the appeal in the second trunk. Perhaps after making some adjustments a mother child style may take form? None the less I love seeing the tree grow and find it's final shape always amazing to see how different eyes influence the growth
MMJNICE
Shohin
That could happen. The mother daughter thing, but still undecided as of yet still. If it happens to be that I make a forest out of all my thuja primo I'll probably keep the height of the secondary trunk but regardless I'll make a definite decision once it's done training in the terracotta pot this year i plan on making individual pots for all my larger primo this year when I get around to it. The largest one in the hazelnut clay pot with the airlayer that I made needs a smaller pot as well.
