bald cypress collecting trip #3 for 2021
Sneak Peek
This week’s catch featured a couple of big ones, though they weren’t quite as large as last week’s big ones; plus we got some smaller material as well.
Bald Cypress Collecting Trip #3 for 2021
Here’s another one of those big guys, though fortunately not quite as large as last week’s big ones. Check out the flutes and the basal flare. Really outstanding material.
One possible front.
I like this front a lot better. The trunk has some movement and the flutes are still nicely highlighted.
A third possibility. Also good, but I still like number 2 best.
Getting the tree in the tub called for adjusting the planting angle to accommodate the flaring roots. But hey, I think this potential front may just have as much going for it as the one above.
The base of the tree is 6.5″ across, and it’s chopped at 31″. You can’t ask for better large BC raw material than this.
We were lucky enough to find some smaller trees this time as well. This one, which has flat-top written all over it, is 3.5″ across just above the soil and stands 29″ at the chop.
Here’s another one with a 3.5″ trunk. Love the flutes and basal flare. I’m thinking of hanging onto this one for training. It stands 26″ to the chop, and will make a fine formal upright specimen.
Let me know what you think.
Zach, the mass at the bottom…are these all roots or is the picture before you’ve washed all the original dirt off? The BC I’ve collected don’t come with all the smaller roots. I must be doing something wrong? Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Robb
Those are roots of the BC, Robb. They don’t always come that way, just sometimes. And you aren’t doing anything wrong. (And they don’t need the fibrous roots to survive collecting, either.)
I would be interested in going along and seeing how and where you collect your bc examples. Shirley and I still belong to LBS and also GNOBS and just finished the Jauary meetings although we still have a 9 – 12 meeting at LBS sunday AM. That’s the third day of their 3 day show with talks by Dawn Koetting and Randy Bennett and others.
Well, I don’t take folks to my honey holes, that’s not good for business. But if you find a place to collect BC I’ll be glad to go along and show you how I lift them in return for a few trees.
Please help me understand the reasons for your comment about the tree which “cries out for flat top”.
The flat-top style of Bald cypress represents a tree at its peak of maturity – an older specimen, in other words. When you observe them in nature, they invariably are tall with the characteristic spreading crown. A bonsai with a slender and graceful trunk, nice but not overly prominent flare at the base, maybe but not necessarily deeply fluted trunk, that’s what we can produce from a slender piece of material. Now, the shorter (on a relative basis) stouter trunk with wide buttressing roots and deep flutes, when trained in the pyramidal style, is representative of a younger cypress. In the bonsai form we are trying to achieve not an exact duplicate of a tree in the wild, but a representation of such trees. Hence the slender taller specimens work very well as flat-tops, while the stouter shorter specimens work well as younger trees. So the tree today that I noted was best suited to flat-top is a taller specimen than normal (29″ vs 24-25″) with a subtle tapering of the trunk and a base that will work well for the flat-top image.
Lovely collection! Have you ever video recorded your BC collection trips? Could be a good educational video.
Thank you, Nandita! We haven’t recorded the process yet, maybe someday we will.