Tree Species: Privet

Owner: Bob Miller

Potter if Known: 

History: In Bob’s words: On the hottest day of the summer of 2018, a generally hot summer, I received a call from one of the gardeners at Botanic Gardens.  He was digging out his mother’s privet hedge, which had been planted around 1928, and had some big chunks of privet.  Did I want some 90 year-old chunks of privet?  Indeed I did, went over immediately, came home with six very large chunks and then immediately had to go out again after compost and containers.  

All six survived.  I put out a call to NIBS for anyone who was interested in big privet and had one taker.  One went out to Ian’s as a practice piece for his workshops.  (I think it’s still there somewhere.)

This one was a long vertical pole with some spindly twigs but also a good set of roots.  I was interested in windblown-styled bonsai at the time and decided to rotate its planting 90 degrees to an almost horizontal.  As privets do, it kept going and sprouted a good number of new shoots, particularly at the base where the roots and the surface meet. 

After a year, I moved the plant from its plastic basin into an interesting pot that my wife had procured in a trade with a fellow student at the art college.  Over the years, the shoots at the base grew vigorously and were thinned down, several of the strongest becoming major horizontal branches, elongating ‘downwind’.  Other, lesser, twigs were wired to simulate branches that had tried to grow windward but had been bent back.  The deadwood at the base had its origin in some quite considerable rot that was there in 2018; but the main shari running left to right is a construction.

I still have the others; all three are going fine on their different, separate paths, but this one is the most successful so far.