CA Coastal Live Oak Cuttings, or Driving down the one o one

What is your favorite part of spring? For me, it's softwood cuttings. I am by no means a cuttings master,  but I have had my share of experience. I have made cuttings throughout the year regardless of the season and the ripeness of the branch. Most cuttings grew a few did not. The failure was not related to species. Usually, what happened os that I would prune a plant. Then I would try to root the cuttings. Most would make it but some would not. Yet, I would never have a 100 percent failure. I attribute this to the very mild climate.

I want to try California Live Oak softwood cuttings. I think that it will be successful. Here in southern California, we had lots of rain this winter. The Oaks have pushed out lots of new growth. I have access to many Live oaks so I can take a few cuttings from each and try my luck.

These branches are new and have not lignified. The branches are very flexible. The leaves have hardened though. I am going to take as much of the branch as possible. I am not going to cut any branch smaller than five inches.

For the planting medium, I am mixing vermiculite and perlite in a ratio of 1:1. I am using a taller pot so that I can bury the ends of the cuttings about three inches.

This is what the cuttings look like. It has too many leaves for it to survive. The leaves would cause all the cutting to lose too much moisture through perspiration.

I removed the growing tip and all of the leaves except for the top two. The top two just underneath where I cut the tip off.

Just before I put them in the pot I shaved an eighth of an inch from the bottom of the cutting. I did do it twice per cutting on opposite sites. Then I added rooting hormone and planted the cuttings and watered.

Even if they fail I'll be able to try in the winter one more time.

I am hoping for the best. I am trailblazing (That means I did not find any info on the web). Updates sure to follow. Cheers.

Update 05/01/2017:

it was a fail.

Akadama Vs. Dirt, or whats dirt got to do with it?

I grow my seedling in dirt I get from my local home improvement center. After rooting my cuttings I put them in the same dirt. I use this soil because I know that my plants will grow very well in it. In the bonsai world there is this whole bias against common soil. The worst thing you can put your tree in the mind of bonsai lovers is regular soil.

I remember reading once that a bonsai lover went to an older man's house to buy some bonsai. Apparently the older man had an extensive collection of bonsai. However, the older man was not able to take care of this collection any longer. The trees had fallen into disrepair. Some of the trees had died. The first criticism that the bonsai lover made was that these trees had been potted in regular soil. His thinking was that the soil did damage to the tree. I thought to myself, “that's probably why the trees hung on for as long as they did”.

I will start an experiment. I will grow some seeds in akadama and some in soil. I will also plant some rooted cuttings, and I will use deciduous trees and evergreens. I will also use broad leaved trees and conifers. I will water them and feed them the same amounts.

I do not have anything against baked clays. I use Turface in my soil mixes. Hard baked clays are very porous. They retain a lot of water without making the soil soggy. The clay is hard but can be broken down by roots. Hard clays in my belief are good in bonsai soil mixtures. I do dislike the suggestion that 100 percent akadama is the only soil for bonsai. Heck, if that were true why even plant trees in the ground? The big draw back to Hard baked clays is that they have zero nutrition for the plants. This may not be a big deal as many bonsai trees are on feeding schedules.

Bonsai empire has a page dedicated to the subject of the use of akadama: http://www.bonsaiempire.com/blog/akadama-soil. Here is a little snippet of what the article says.

"(1.) Do you use akadama? If so, for all your trees? And for trees in all stages of development?

Yes, I use akadama for all my trees. I use less akadama on the tree in training (25% or less). - Boonyarat Manakitivipart (Bonsai Boon)

I try to use Akadama for Japanese maples since I have found nothing better. Unfortunately price and unreliability of supply in the USA means that this is not always possible. I also use recycled Akadama as a partial ingredient in general purpose soils. - Colin Lewis

I haven't used Akadama on my own trees for over 10 years now; there have been occasions a client has insisted on using it for deciduous trees (that can be bare-rooted) but I always refuse to repot a coniferous species into Akadama. Pines and Junipers cannot have a complete soil-change to remove Akadama and repotting is infrequent; it stands to reason that any akadama introduced into the soil of a Pine or Juniper will become very compacted before there is an opportunity to remove it. - Harry Harrington

The answer is simple, because I do not use Akadama. Have tried it and it doesn't do its job here. It doesn't fit the growing conditions around here (Northern Europe), it is expensive, and other high quality soils are available at low costs. Denmark is a country with a proud gardening history and a well developed greenhouse tradition, which has contributed with a lot of research and development bringing forward the best soil mixtures for container growing i.e. So why import a soil when very good and tested soils are at hand? - Morten Albek

No, in Indonesia, we only use volcanic lava soil from Indonesia for all of our Bonsai. for all stages. Excellent and cheap! - Robert Steven"

So, just like everything else in bonsai it really is up to the individual. Where you live, and how you grow bonsai determines what you use for soil.

If you keep reading the article you will see that some people vigorously defend akadama, some people will use it if they can get it or not if it is not available, and some people will claim that akadaa can harm your tree. Experiment coming soon. Cheers.

Kapok the silk tree, pre bonsai experiments on a tropical

I have always collected seeds. wherever I went if i saw fruiting trees I have tried to take some seeds home. Sometimes they would not germinate. In the early days of the internet information was not as readably available. Now, information is limited by one’s imagination. There is stratification, scarification, dormancy, etc. Each plant has its prerequisite for germination. There is one plant that I have had one hundred percent germination. That plant is the Kapok. The kapok is a tropical plant that can grow 230 feet tall. It has buttressing roots that are tall enough to hide a person. It is a very impressive tree. I have searched for kapok bonsai on the information super highway to no avail. Well I found one example, but i crave more.

Kapok at Yamaguchi bonsai nursery in Culver City

Last year I collected kapok seeds from a tree at work. One year later and the results are incredible.

sapling Kapok one year old.

The growth rate was amazing. The trunk taper was phenomenal. This was looking to be a very interesting bonsai. After a year they have not lignified. I have wired them a bit. I have noticed because they are soft and grow so fast you have to keep an eye on the wiring. Let the wire bite into it a bit. The wire scar will heal very fast. Be vigilant though.

One year's growth

The saplings grow a palmate leaf that grows from the trunk. They look like a branch and leaves. However, the whole “branch” falls off after a while. The tree kept growing, and the leaves kept falling. There were no branches. I decided to nip it in the bud. I cut the growing tip and hoped that the plant would force branches out of the place where its leaves had left a scar. My gamble paid off and the tree started to grow branches.

True branches growing from the crotch

Here I wired a kapok in semi cascade style, han-kengai. It so happens to be one of my favorite styles. The trunk is green, so it is super malleable. I am very excited to see this tree develop in the next two years.  

I have brought you up to date on my experiment. I'll keep you updated. Cheers.

Update April 13

We have branches. Or at least that is what they look like.

Update June 11

Let me show you a recent pic of the tree pictured right above:

After I took the wire off the tree straightened itself. The problem is that the trunk has not lignified. The trunk is still green and not woody. The wire can cut deep into the soft tissue fairly quickly. Now, when I wired this tree i actually broke it in two places. The tree healed and I removed the wire. I thought that because of the scaring of the broken points the tree would retain its shape. I was wrong. Back to the drawing board I suppose. 

Update July 8

I tried something else. I chopped the kapok under the oldest leaf. It was just a knob. Four branches grew from that knob. Now my Kapok looks like a palm tree. Could this be a new style in bonsai? Palm tree style bonsai? 

All kidding aside, I liked where the tree was going, but I thought that it needed an even more dramatic pruning. So I chopped a different tree even lower. I cut at the place where I would like to see new branches grow. A week after the chop I saw one small bud growing out, it lives! 

It should grow back

Update July 19

There are little branches growing from the trunk. The trunk chop seems to be the best way to promote branch growth lower on the trunk.

Update July 23

It's only been 4 days after the last update but the branches have grown tremendously.

Update August 26:

It looked promising. However, things took a turn. The kapok decided to replace its trunk and not grow new branches.

Update Nov 4

I was looking at the kapoks and I saw one that had spikes:

One of the trees is growing the thorn/ spikes that are typical of some of these trees.