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.
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