Excuse me... last summer it set only a few buds, three I think and did not grow hardly at all after grafting 07/08. So it is basically a one-bud graft, which turned into three last year which exploded (12-15??) shoots this year...

Dax

Amazing Dax...I always wondered how one single budded conifer scion could develop into a bushy little plant.
The traditional pinching/trimming methods seemed counterproductive. Now I know!

Barbara

Hi Barbara, regarding producing stock plants, it's the pinching in combination with removing at least every other shoot to use for scionwood--is how stock plants are maintained, in so few words. I guess careful selection would be a better form of terminology. The whole idea is to keep a bush small while producing the most shoots for every given year. I have not produced any yet, however. Just single specimens here. Pinching early will aid in the development though. You see how that bud forms more than one shoot each year so you select the right ones and keep (most-likely) the most dominant shoot, however, that's the one you'll pinch back. In so few words, yah right.

Dax

Hi Dax,

A very nice mini broom you got there!
What was the size of the original broom and did those trimmers cut it completely out?
How long are the older needles in cm.?
Good luck with this one!

Hi Edwin,

55mm versus now's 11mm at the longest. There's one thing I've been thinking about today (just got home) if the needles would ever be as long as what is there now. This I can say is that the new growth as well as the old needles have a lot of white vertical striping on the needles and some needles are more blue than others. It looks very nice.

The scions were only a few. I told the guy who was the boss of the tree crew I'd take a few scions because he said the broom was very "ugly." I recall him saying it was not dense at all and that the growth was very large??? So I'm completely at a loss.

Unfortunately that guy vanished from the earth as far as I know and as far as several other people I know who talk plants are aware of.

Take care Edwin,

Dax