Post 178 Seasonal development - grow and cut

In south east Qld we are having perfect growing weather not to hot and not too cool, like goldilocks porridge, just right. This is very typical of our spring weather before the real heat and humidity strikes. Our trees have had a good run over the last 6 to 8 weeks and that time is pretty good for a grow and cut cycle here. We can get anywhere up to 4 or 5 of these cycles to build bulk and ramification.

I’ve got a couple of trees here today that I’ve just pruned for the next cycle. Both have had their tops restrained by tip pruning while the lower branches have been allowed to run.

 

The first one is a malus which I posted back in August when it was in its beautiful autumnal red. Today its before and after pruning photos. The wire will only need to be there for perhaps 4 or 5 weeks and in 6 or 8 weeks will look like the first photo again.

 

All that growth builds the trunk and primary branches developing taper and proportion. As you can see I’m happy to leave the top of the tree to be developed when it is the right time; that can always be done easily but if the lower branches aren’t developed now, then later is generally not an available option.

 

This one is a corky bark elm and has gotten pretty wild. Once again the top of the tree has been clipped to maintain the fine branches and the lower growth allowed to run. Building trunk mass over the years and keeping a tree in a presentable shape can be a slow process. 

 

And here it is after a good tidy up. Not too much wire in use and the foliage pads have had a good pinching to open them out and let the light in; ready to go again. If I was interested in further developing fine branches now would be a time for total defoliation. Leaving the leaves in place is more likely to result in new individual terminal growth, but that’s ok for a repetition of this cycle.

 

 

On my place I have a few big eucalypt trees and November is like another season here – we call it ‘bark’, because that’s when the trees shed their bark and generally make a real mess for a month. Well they’ve started and the first thing to get shed was a big paper wasp nest. I don’t know that I’ve seen one quite this big before and am very pleased I wasn’t around when it fell.