centaura

Has anyone here tried a mountain laurel - Kalmia latifolia as a bonsai subject? If you have, do you know how much pruning that they can take? I've tried looking up pruning advice on them, only to repeated get "they don't need much pruning". As you all know, as a bonsai subject they should preferably tolerate hard pruning, but I can't find that info out. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

-Centaura

JLDoggett

Centaura,

I have tried to bonsai them several times, I even used one as the model in my tutorial for how to do a virtual. I found some nice ones at a nursery a few years ago and bought 8 of them that had potential, none lived. One thing I learned is they do not do well when hard pruned... They do not seem to back-bud easily, if ever. Several trunk chops produced dead stumps in pots and pruned branches kept their remaining leaves for the season, then dropped them in the fall and died over winter. I have made a note to not waste my money on one again. Then again it could just have been me.

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centaura

Thank you for the info. I haven't paid any money for the one I just got - I collected it from my mother's property in North Carolina. This one had a great shape, and was in an area due to be dug up next spring. The trunk line is great, but its long and leggy and would need compaction of the foliage to be a decent bonsai. That's good to know that they don't like hard pruning, I'll take it slow with it this spring. And if it doesn't make it, it was free and doomed to begin with.

-Centaura

Salvelinus

I actually spoke with Jerry Meislik about this once. He said mountain laurel make very poor bonsai subjects due to the legginess and poor backbudding. Made sense to me. I see beautiful specimens while backpacking, with snaky trunks and branches, but never much foliage, if any, near the trunk or base. Too bad.

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centaura

It makes sense - my first impression of the leggy growth was that they were growing in a very shady undergrowth situation. I already discovered when I harvested this one that the branches are very brittle, which is another negative for it for bonsai. If nothing else, they are supposed to be hardy up to my area and there's a spot that I can put it in the yard. I still might try to work with this one, its not too far gone on the legginess, but I won't stress over it.

Thanks all for the input. Its a shame, they have great branch structure naturally and good trunk lines. Ah well, you never can find anything that has everything!

-Centaura