Sym
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Joined: Fri Jan 11, 2013 1:46 am
Location: Mississippi

Pecan

I officially have a lot of new young projects off the ground.
I have some very young pecan trees coming up and I was wondering has anybody had much success with these trees?? I should have about 7 maybe ill plant a couple in the yard but need some suggestions and ideas.

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rainbowgardener
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Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
Location: TN/GA 7b

No. I looked around the internet and could not find a single example of pecan tree bonsai and several people saying it could not be done:

"The compound leaves are twelve to twenty inches long and the leaflets are three to eight inches long. I think its really next to impossible to reduce the leaf size and persuade the canopy to grow compactly enough to be a remotely decent or convincing bonsai. I don't know; I've never tried to use pecan for bonsai material, but they grow all around here in Texas and the overall scale of growth of this tree seems just too coarse."

Some trees will produce smaller than normal leaves under the right circumstances of training; many large leafed trees will not. In general the most suitable subjects for bonsai are those that have naturally small leaves to start with.

tomc
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Location: SE-OH USA Zone 6-A

The large compound leaves of pecan, hickory, walnut, chestnut, ironwood preclude their selection as bonsai. they don't won't play small.

There is a very dwarf cultivar of allegheny chinkapin that might work *IF* you can find any examples of it (I have not)

If I lived in the south, and fancied a legume to train as bonsai, I'd shop around for pithecelobium flexicaule, Texas Ebony seed. They will make a tree knees and ankles better than bigger nut trees will.

Hamradioguy
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Well I have a pecan tree growing in a pot now and I’m planning on making it a bonsai.

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applestar
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Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Pecans do sprout and grow for you pretty easily — I started with three of them — but as far as I know, taproot forming nut trees are not suited for bonsai.

In fact, if you want to keep your pecan seedling growing well enough to eventually grow into nut bearing tree, it’s best to grow them in extra deep tree nursery pots or something like a 1/2 gallon milk carton to start with, then something deeper before the tap root becomes distorted.

Mine have been planted in the ground and one of them has been growing well (albeit slowly … 2nd one is touch-and-go — may not make it…) for the past several years. I’m hoping the nearby shag bark hickories will help be the pollen source to pollinize it eventually for nut bearing….



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