I just bought this from the local nursery. It cost about $250 dollars, which is way more than I would like to spend, but a very special looking tree. If your familiar with the dry tropics you have seen this kind of hard wood tree with peeling bark. It has evolved independently in several different plant families. I am a field biologist and this Jabuticaba species is not found in Mexico, but the bark and form provide an opportunity to capture the essence of the tropical dry forest that I know and love.


My plan is to make it an upright bonsai in a similar style as this Bursera simaruba in the photo below. It is not the same species but when given the chance species like Caesalpinia sclerocarpa that have bark like Jabuticaba they grow in a similar fashion.


I am still doing research on this species, however this is the overall design I want to go for. We are in January here and in February the temperatures start going back up and it is kind of when our spring starts. The first thing I will do is repot it to see what kind of root work I have head of me. Im hoping there is not one gigantic ball of root. Then I will make some major cuts and salvage some of the branches that I will cut off by doing a series of Scion grafts to fill in the canopy a little bit because some of the major branches that are between the canopy and were the trunk first bifurcates need to be cut off because they are too big to be canopy branches.

Nice. I am sure you know of its flowering habits?

No need to graft & do not worry about rootwork These are bulletproof...:

september 2019


juli 2020


september 2020

taggertbutterfield wrote: We are in January here

Actually we are all in january right now

Nice tree, looking forward to follow the progress!

Tropfrog wrote:

taggertbutterfield wrote: We are in January here

Actually we are all in january right now

Nice tree, looking forward to follow the progress!

hahaha! I noticed this the second I published it!

leatherback wrote: Nice. I am sure you know of its flowering habits?

No need to graft & do not worry about rootwork These are bulletproof...:

september 2019

This image is hidden for guests.
Please log in or register to see it.

juli 2020

This image is hidden for guests.
Please log in or register to see it.

september 2020

This image is hidden for guests.
Please log in or register to see it.

Amazing pictures and thank you! I do know of its flowering habits and the guy said that it does produce fruits and im hoping that he is correct.

he is.
The fruit are nice, 2-3cm diameter and black. On the trunks

The root mass was pretty nicely shaped.


I only cut off the bottom part. It seems like there is a big woody chunk in the middle of the root ball that I will be able to cut off in the future to get into a very shallow pot.


I have been making cuts and doing some wires over the past week to the foliage.
photo 1


photo 2


photo 3

Nice.

With your hand in the image for scale.. It is quite a bit bigger than it seemed. Good size!

Now.. let it get established. I found this to be a water-loving species.

Yes it is pretty big! I have read that they take years to fruit. On some of the smaller branches I cut off I could count 6 rings. So if the base has more than the smaller branches maybe it is 8-10 year tree? Of course that is only if rings as I observed them count as years. There is a chance I am misinterpreting the early/late wood. There are small nubs across throughout the trunk that seem like they could have been locations of fruits or future flower buds.

I will try to take pictures with better scale in the future.

The one I showed was in full fruit when I bought it, and is significantly smaller than yours. I do not think age will be limiting you to get flowers. (Mine will probably we climate )