Sage's Bonsai : Purple Leaf Sand Cherry

Purple leaf sand cherry (Prunus x cistena) is a member of the Rose family. Prunus is Latin for ‘plum’ while cistena is the Sioux word for ‘baby’ in reference to its smallish size. The “x” is indicative of the shrub’s hybridism.

Read more at Gardening Know How: Sand Cherry Plant Care: How To Grow A Purple Leaf Sand Cherry https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/trees/sand-cherry/purple-leaf-sandcherry-info.htm

April 27, 2019

Got a response from my craigslist ad. The gentleman said that there were two 8' lilacs and a few other shrubs between about 3 - 4 feet tall. Turns out that the two larger shrubs were sand cherries. I didn't know if they would be great for bonsai, but the small red leaves and nice pink flowers, were interesting and I could instantly tell that the one I ended up digging had a nice root spread. It was so wide I had to cut it back pretty hard just to get to a place where I could begin to dig my trench. Luckily, he had a trailer with yard debris that he said was going to the dump and I could toss the branches in there. Otherwise, I would have had difficulty transporting the trimmings on my roof.

This was a bit of a beast, but after hacking it back in his yard, I was committed. I started wide. In my preliminary circle around the tree I hit five or six thick roots, some as thick as my wrist.

I took my time in isolating these and sawing them (although, I would later break my root saw on one of the last cuts). I undercut it and tried to get it rocking, and it didn't budge. I began to get nervous about a large tap root, especially since the tree was so thick. My hunch was that with the other roots so thick I couldn't be to bad. I Undercut it some more and found another two roots to cut. At this point, I was able to get it rocking and from here it came out pretty easy.

The soil was pure sand, but was really compacted. It was pretty heavy. I knocked off as much soil as was reasonable with my hand tool and wrapped up the rootball

Below you can get a sense of the size of this tree. Beer of course for scale. I began the process of reducing the trunk heights.

After sawing a few with my pruning saw, I upgraded to my bow saw. I was tired from sawing roots at the dig site and dark was approaching.

Here is the top reduced. Now it was time to hose of the roots and work with my root rake to loosen the rest of the heavy soil.

Here, you can get a sense of how thick the roots were. This one was the heaviest.

I used a gentle setting on the hose and kept about 15% of the native soil. There seemed to be a few good areas of dense feeder roots. I was feeling confident that this tree, although greatly reduced in both trunk and heavy roots would respond will in the coming weeks. The tree was still in flower, and typically after flowering is the time to do heavy pruning, so I feel like this work was well timed.

Once potted up, I began to seal the heavy cuts with cut paste. I did not do this last year and lost two big collected plants.

I tied it in with guide wires from the sides of the pot. This is the new bulb pot that I got introduced to at the bonsai club meeting. It fit the bill perfectly for this tree. Wide enough for this monster, with enough depth to help restore and develop the tree.

Here is is from two sides. I watered it in with superthrive and mycorrhiza starter. There were just a few leaves, hopefully it will back-bud soon.

June 2019

I'm happy that this tree responded so well. It has pushed some nice growth. Today I went in and eliminated some redundant growth and any growth that was coming straight up and in branch crotches. I took about 1/3 of the top growth. I was considering wire, but did not want to risk breaking any shoots off. I plan on styling it in a generally vertical style anyway, considering that it is currently growing outward.

Before

After

End of July

This tree has been growing strong. Some branches were getting thick so I figured I might try to get some wire on to give the very straight branches some movement. I also cut back aggressively to induce branching and/or back budding, as all the branches were straight and unbranching. I left one toward the top to grow out.

Before