SECOND FLUSH OF NEW GROWTH ON MY SMALL HAWTHORN.

Hi, everybody,

I would like to share some pictures of the abounded second flush of new growth on this small Yamadori Hawthorn. After the first cutting back of the new growth, earlier this growing season, it responded with a lot of new, brightly red colored, small branches, with tiny leaves! The exact timing to cut back this new growth is crucial! If you wait to long to cut back this new growth that will be used to form the smaller ramification on the already shaped main branches, they will become to thick fore there intended purpose! I only allow these new branches to grow, were I need main branches to thicken (sacrifice branch) or were I need a new branch that is thicker and or longer! These will be allowed a bit longer and will be cut back in a few weeks time. The ones I cut today are shortened to about the second pair of leaves, depending how long I need them to be! Hawthorns can become very ruff in their branch structure if you allow small branches to grow to thick and long on a small tree like this one. If this is the case, in just a few years, your to thick branches will need some major cutting to open it all up again. And that means a lot of scares on a tree species that those not heals scares very well and slow! The can grow large bulbs of bark on trunks or at the end of shortened branches were big cuts were necessary! These big lumps of bark are almost impossible to correct, leaving you with the only option of cutting back that branch to before that bulky scare! So timing your branch cutting is very important for a nice clean future branch structure that can grow freely for many years with out many problems on a small Hawthorn like this one! And when you finally do have to cut back some of your branches in the future, your work will be much easier, you just cut to were you allowed a smaller branch to grow all those years ago!

After the pruning. It might not look as if much is removed or shortened from this picture, but believe me, there is! And just in time to prevent unwanted branch thickening or lengthening! What is don today will show in a few years when the tree is shown in its new pot as a Bonsai!

I can hardly wait! 🙂

Cheers,

Hans van Meer.

Info: karamottobonsai@hotmail.com

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