Not Your Mother's Candles...

 Update: Mexican Weeping Pine

The Pinus Patula has been taking shape over the last few months, to the point that you can almost see what he's going to look like when he's grown. You can see 3 distinct sets of candles growing at the tips of branch ends, that indicate where the major branching will be on this tree, if allowed to continue.

Topping the plant is a whorl (circle) of 7 candles, each about 3 " long. In order to balance the tree, it will be necessary to reduce the number of candles, or the tree will become top-heavy or lopsided.

This morning, I pruned 3 of the 7 candles, leaving 4 in a North-South-East-West configuration, as pictured here:

I'll let him rest now for a few days, although I don't expect any reaction at all..young trees like this are remarkably resilient at this stage, I am learning.

Back to Work

 I've been so engaged with the suspected fungal infections affecting the Japanese Maple & "the Fremont" (my Cottonwood tree) and getting the new trees squared-away, and the Thanksgiving holiday, that I have been neglecting the rest of my plants, so today, I tried to get back to a regular routine of water & feeding & taking a closer look at each plant.

The Dragon Tree foliage is looking a little ragged, these days, so I gave him a boost by misting his foliage with a dilute mix of water & liquid seaweed..since I discovered the benefits of foliar feeding, I am finding out that it can be a solution to many plant maladies &/or problems, including physical damage.

I also sprayed the Japanese Maple & I think he's gonna be ok..his color is coming back, as we've stopped the progress of whatever was causing them to turn black & die, from the tips inward.. I am encouraged.Monter

Also gave the pines (Monterey Pine & Mexican Weeping pine) a shower, using just plain water, as well as the Junipers (Blue Star & Juniperis). Then, since I had my sprayer out, gave all of the Jades, Elephant Bush & the other succulents (that I don't know the names of)a shower..they all seemed to like it.

Spent a little time with my Olive tree, as I noticed that he had experienced another growth spurt.This little tree will seem to go dormant for stretches of time & then exhibit discernible growth..his color is an amazing deep green that I have not seen previously on this plant..his leaf size is also increasing towards what I assume is how they look when fully mature..the Olive is very slow-growing, even in our Mediterranean climate

Update: Japanese Maple

Nov. 30

Not much change..infected foliage is not getting any worse..I think the repotting in fresh soil addressed the root (no pun intended) problem, but I don't see any substantial improvement, although there are some new leaves appearing & so far, do not appear to be infected.

My long-term strategy for this tree was to wait for his winter dormancy to repot & prune (he is deciduous), but I'm more concerned with recovery than schedules, right now, so decided to remove the top-most branch in order to lessen the load on the roots.

Reducing the height of this JM has always been necessary to shorten him, but to also possibly stimulate "back-budding" or new growth that is lower on the tree than the current canopy. If we can accomplish that without "layering" the tree (think taking a section out of the lower trunk), we might save months off the schedule for this tree.

(if you need to "catch-up" on the history, see the Japanese Maple Photo/History)

Update: Unpacking 2 New Trees

Both of these seedlings survived 5 days in-transit, and nearly 2 weeks since they were potted & both are showing signs of growth, so I have formally welcomed them into the collection, live or die, & created permanent Photo/History pages for each, which have been added to the list of specimen trees.

They can be found at Pacific Crabapple (Malus Fusca) and Flowering Dogwood (Cornus Florida) respectively. To see the complete article showing the process of receiving, unpacking, potting, etc. see Unpacking 2 New Trees.