China Doll (Radermachera sinica) Size Reduction)
tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
15 years ago
On the turntable is a dish planting I potted up in a saikei workshop about 4 years ago. I knew the material available wouldn't be suitable for that type of planting (airy habit & compound leaves), but there wasn't much selection of material, so I planted it anyway. There are 2 Radermachera sinicas and 2 Asparagus plumosus ferns.
This is what it looked like before I started. You can see that it's overgrown & unattractive in the picture and needs a reduction:
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After a bit of a reduction, it looks like this. Note the pile of prunings on the work table next to the planting.
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Here is a closer view after the chop:
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In this view, you can see where I already performed the same type of reduction 2 years ago.
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Moving upward from the soil line, the trunk is straight and then takes a little offset to the right. At that offset, immediately above the lowest branch is the spot where I cut it back previously. The scar has completely healed in the 2 years since. Later in the summer. I'll take some more photos so you can follow the progress - if there is any interest.
The reduction might be a little more radical than most of you are comfortable with, but I do it all the time, on a wide variety of woody material. I primarily posted the pictures so I could refer to them at some later date - in order to give others confidence in the idea that their trees can be similarly reduced when they've grown out of bounds. Perhaps I'll add pictures of a Ficus or two this summer if I have any radical reductions.
Al
shadara
hort_lvr_4life
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