Pruning My Bald Cypress and More, The Bonsai Zone, Aug 2023 

Looking forward to following the Bald Cypress progress...

You mentioned how much water the plant needs. In the Southeast United States Louisiana and Missippi the literally grow in swamps.

I love that little ficus religiosa :)

That lawnmower is quite soothing.

8:47 My goodness that's like a beanpole!

The silk tree grows outside my apartment building in Croatia. They‘re over 10 years old and are pretty skinny. When I park beneath them I always have to clean my windshield. Beautiful, but messy. Let them flower, they‘re wonderfully fragrant.

It worked! Good for you! Due to my experience with Bald Cypress (3 of them) I was quite skeptical about your potting method. But it worked. In my experience I put two of my Bald cypress in 3L pots standing in trays of water. I used peat and sand. The 3rd tree was planted in a 1.5 sq meter bog that is only 12 cm deep. One of the potted trees died, the other did not thrive. After 7 years the potted tree has a trunk pencil thick, 7.5 mm, while the Bog tree is 6.3 cm thick and over 3 meters tall. I figured the Bonsai Soil that you used was inappropriate for Bald Cypress due to their high water demand and natural growth in standing water. But you proved me wrong. Even my Bald Cypress in the bog had foliage damage from 35C+ weather. I think the humidity was much lower than what it's natural environment presents. So I added a layer of water on top of the bog to increase humidity and just plain water availability. I plan to shorten the bog tree to about 70 cm in a year or two to resemble a hurricane damaged tree.

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Hello uncle Nigel,i am watching from south Africa and have learned a lot from you, would love it if I could show you my 4 year old fever tree.

👍👌👌

Excellent video as always.

Theres a nice write up on Bald Cpress forests in this months Nat. GEO....

Great video. Lots of big cuts today. It went down to 49F here last night. A reminder that I need to start getting ready for cold weather.

Great batch of updates! Lots of big cuts today! Thanks Nigel!

So happy you have a fresh tube of rubber cement for the wounds from your next, “Big cut (or chop) coming up!” ✂️✂️✂️ Didn’t know whether there was another cut’s worth left. Felt a little like driving on fumes. Whew! ✂️ 🌿🌿🌿✂️😊

Thanks Nigel.

What about a water sealer for the wooden table top benches? Might help the table last longer than the 10 years. Just a thought.

Nice prune updates. Love the oaks especially. I recently did a video on my oak, I did a big cut on it to remove a big swelling. Well I removed most of the tree. 😅 it's doing great now there a great species that love to bud out and recover quickly. Love the channel 👍🏻

This subject matter was just what I needed ....Thank you

Yaaaaaay! Project time!

29:35 I took a bonsai in to show my Joey Scouts (5-8 year olds, I think you call them Beavers), and I had a stick insect on one of them. The kids wanted to "adopt it" and take it home. I had to guard it to make sure it stayed in the tree it had chosen for it's OWN home!

great job i think the Bald cypress will look realy great in a few years nice summerpruning thanks for showing👍👍

Thanks Nigel ! In my 5th year of bonsai now and keen for the spring , thanks especially for showing the oak pruning 👍

Oooooooooo! Great idea for the shelves!!!

. I thought the plant was gonna go for another full circle. You gave a friend the cutting they grew it and gave it back then you could have gave them the cutting from the cutting you once gave them lol.

The Bald Cypress is really exciting to follow.👍

Hi

Very nice ,and beautiful this video! 🕉🕉 Dear Master 😆.

Nice work on the pruning. Plant room, work in progress. A lot to do before winter sets in. Nice thought getting the heavy duty table.

love seeing all the trees on the go!☀️

A beautiful specimen!

A bald cypress forest would be sick. With a ‘pot’ that you could flood at show time

Nice to see some of the less developed trees and how they are doing! The plant room will be great with those new scaffolding benches!

The Bald Cypress is a cool species. I'd love to have one, too, but it seems it's hard to keep up with the water... In my local park there are the similar looking Dawn Redwoods, and also some Giant Redwoods. I hope I can get some seeds or cuttings from them to try making Bonsai out of them. The Kapok tree got quite the chop. I hope this one will have a long healthy life. Very interesting species! The new table for the Bonsai Zone looks good! It's slightly sad to see the outdoor studio gone, but it makes sense, and we have the glass greenhouse now, which is just fantastic. I noticed the Trident Maple you have has leaves that are more pointy than the one on mine. It looks quite elegent though, I think. Mine had great fall colors last year, so I hope yours will look very colorful, too! Hopefully the Nightshade Vine will keep staying strong in the future!

Wonderful video on the bald cypress. I live in eastern North Carolina, USA. Cypress swamps are very common in this part of the state. They are beautiful trees.

Major changes to your Bald Cypress. I’ll be pruning mine in a few days. Just want to mention that Shoe Goo is thicker than rubber cement and is not stringy at all. I’m really happy with the results I’m getting. Thank you for the suggestion that a rubberized paste might work better. I happily abandoned my Lac Balsam cut paste.

Cool 😎 till the next time

Nice to get caught up on the little ones! Like a game of Trim, Trim, Trunk Chop! Great video Nigel! Those table are really hard to find used. When you do, they are often broken. Safer to buy new, if something is wrong with it can return. Get max life out of the table. Get some used oil or like a triple lube spray. coat all the moving parts on the table so they don't seize up if it will be outside year round. Galvanized metal will oxidize too. Go all white.

Great content as always Nigel. How do you overwinter you oaks? I had a great specimen I acquired last year and it died back to the soil over the winter (lows got down to 8°F here in Virginia) so I’m thinking of overwintering it in my woodshop to keep it out of the frost…

Oh I watched you lop the roots off this tree last night lol They grow in swamps here in GA.

I'm looking forward to seeing how you get that base going. I've got a bigger one. I've repotted 4 or 5 times now, but I'm still not butrusing base.

I am always so worried of cutting it back too much. But here I see you just removed like 70% of the tree like it was nothing. Am I too worried or does it differ on the species?

I’ve read, and watched several videos, which make a strong case for doing this type of work on deciduous trees in n late fall to increase a stronger vigorous spring push. Supposedly in early to late fall the tree is supercharging it’s vascular system to increase branch and trunk girth and support its root system for the winter ahead. Anyone have any thoughts?? Thanks, keep growing

Foist

HOW?! How do you get branches that separate and distinct on your bald cypress? Mine tries to shoot out 9 branches every cut I make. I take off maybe 20-30 buds a week, and it's still a bushy mess lol. Its about 2 feet tall, next year I think I'll reduce it to get some taper going, and make it so it's easier to manage. I thought those were all individual oaks coming up, I honestly didn't know oaks could have root suckers. Shame oaks don't propagate well, you could have had a royal forest!

Cut paste in a tube does a better job than the rubber cement. Not stringy, and has healing compounds that protect and heal the tree.

I think your hair needs pruning too!

Ever thought about pruning the bonsai that’s growing on your head?

Swamp Cypress rolls off the tongue better...