u/Bank_Eye

Pics are in reverse order

The trunk is about 4 or 5 cm at the base and it's 17cm up to that first branch where i did a chop last year. The new leader is about 1.5m tall. I planted this from seed around 2018 or 2019.

This year was time for some root reduction from a deep clay pot and into a much better medium. took a lot of tap root off to make the root system considerably shallower.

The roots were much more healthy than i expected, so I cut back quite a bit, confidence boosted by knowing that it's the right time of year and knowing it's going into a much better mix of crushed LECA, pine bark and perlite (my affordable development mix)

Here's a combretum that I've been growing for some time, but never really paid much attention to, until now. It's from a seed i think around 2020 or so.

Firstly, I will be moving it to a bigger pot at the end of this winter to help me grow it out a bit thicker and build some structure higher up. I also hope to see what's up with the roots and do some work there. I want to chop that lowest branch much shorter and effectively "move" that ramification much closer to the trunk over the medium term.

A South African bushveld tree not often seen for the international audience. They tend to grow a patchy, sparse canopy which is linked with its habit of readily back budding on old trunks and branches. I want to try and replicate that habit of having some leafy bits within the "branchy" parts of the tree and see where it goes from there.

So far I've been impressed with the leaf size reduction i could achieve and i think it has some potential.

Anyone else growing a combretum of some kind? I'd love to see some.