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Bushing oak trees...
Charlie 224
Posts: 129
Is there a way to make an oak sapling spread out its branches, rather than it just being a single shoot? And what in general causes many plants to form multiple shoots from a cut off end?
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How big is your sapling, Charlie? Photo?
if you cut back to just above a bud, that bud and probably others below it, will grow to produce branches.
In the sticks near Peterborough
Charlie
Perhaps, rather than making a series of individual queries, if you could tell us what it is you're trying to achieve in the long term, we could advise you on the best course of action to get what you're after.
http://www.gardenersworld.com/forum/plants/potted-plants-and-fertilizer/884794.html
http://www.gardenersworld.com/forum/plants/growing-plants-inside-moving-outside/864277.html
Hope that's helpful
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
In general, cutting off the growing point reduces apical dominance and shoots lower down, growing from a node take over. If you do this to a eucalyptus, it will throw up many new stems from dormant buds which were previously suppressed by apical dominance. However, with an oak, it seems determined to make a single trunked tree. I have one growing in an awkward spot by the pond, planted for me by the helpful squirrels. I cant get at it to dig it out, so I regularly chop it down. It only sends up one stem again. I think that oaks are determined to be a tree and not a bush.
Dovefromabove- I'm just experimenting with saplings i love growing them and then have nowhere to put them and they stay in the pots- apart from about ten i have planted.
Thanks fidget bones that's very heplful!
Charlie, why not have a go at bonsai with your saplings? Here's some info for oak:
http://www.bonsai-made-easy.com/bonsaioaktree.html