Apache Plume (Fallugia paradoxa) is a very interesting plant for a number of reasons. First its an xeriscape plant which does not need a lot of water, it has very fine foliage, its a woody plant/small tree, it has beautiful white flowers and very pink artistic fine seed pods making it very showy all year round. I thought it would make a nice Bonsai! Apache Plume is a Colorado native plant and can be found in most of the south western states. Well 8 years latter I finally found a nursery plant with a big trunk on it. I have checked every Apache Plume plant I found at every nursery I visited and it was always a multi-stemmed shrub. Nicks Garden Center in Aurora was the nursery where I finally found my prize. I proudly went and retrieved a cart, loaded the tree up on it, wheeled it into the office and paid for it. Now out to the car for a trip home. I took her out of the car and placed her on the styling table and turned her around several times. Yep, she has a nice think trunk with some nebari on it and there were 3 large branches coming off from the trunk. I decided to keep all three branches and trimmed off the dead stuff and cut it back some. I took her out and left her in the yard for about 4 weeks and finally decided to style the tree about a week go. The tree has peeling bark and the large trunks/branches might be hard to bend with out breaking them into or so I thought. Smaller branches turned out not to be a problem. I then tried bending the larger branches and was able to do it with some larger wire. I took my time bending these larger branches and did not break any. Right now the tree is resting under 30% shade cloth and then will be moved out into full sun. I will let the tree grow untouched for a while now and let it build up some strength before doing anything else.
Apache Plume by Trees That Please Nursery
Apache Plume Blossom On The Green Mountain Trail by Kenne Turner
Apache Plume (Fallugia paradoxa) by USDA
This is going to be fun watching this tree develop into some thing special. I suppose at sometime it will end up in the Denver Botanic Gardens Bonsai collection.
