Kirk, it is so cool.

Marie

I thought Somalenese were also commonly used for tower forms.

Kirk, it has a terrific start. So the objective of a tower form is to elongate the plant?

Tracy

Interesting indeed! I suppose the objective is to get them strong enough to not rely upon the support poles? Fascinating stuff, thanks for sharing Kirk and Rick.

Tracy

Any update Kirk? I have a few obesums bottles.

Interesting experiment, though it's not my personal favourite form.

Gill

Gill. And now?

Kirk. I tkink that your pot is too small. You need a deeper pot.

Hey! I had let it grow a bit longer. I think if I'd had some pvc pipe I could have done a better job and much faster. But here is where it is at today. I don't plan on lengthening it any more. Letting bottom growth fatten up which it is doing nicely. Oh, and when I took this picture with my phone I noticed it's starting to show signs of branching at the top that's probably not shown in the picture. Sorry for the blurry picture.

Kirk

Nice job Kirk. Today i planted the botles. Baobab style.

Hello Kirk/Stuart, you both have some good plants there that hopefully will go on to give you the Tower forms.

I mentioned earli that these were not my fav type....mainly because I hadn't fully realised that plants in training with their skinny lower portions would later go on to develop fatter bases. They look so unbalanced and un natural and not what you see in real life with a thinner base than tops. Will the thin part always fatten up, does the thin part slow down its growth to favour putting weight on below it or does that wider portion still expand at a slower rate?

I have always admired baobab trees for their shape alone and hadn't really seen tower forms that emulate this....is this what you are striving to achieve?

I know we dont normally see braided and plaited forms in nature, I don't personally care for these, but I admire the work that shapes them. Centipede and decorated roots whilst heavily manipulated look 'more' natural to my eye, so have my yes vote.

Maybe you guys are converting me to now appreciate Tower Forms? Indeed, whatever next?

Gill

Just something I've noticed, but I'm inclined to think that some Tower forms don't involve the root stretching. A few pictures of "tower forms" clearly show leaf nodes all the way down to the base. Others seem to use the root stretching technique.

I suspect that the stretching is used to accelerate the rate at which the plant reaches the desired height and/or allows species that would not normally grow so tall as a single "branch" to do so.