bc forest – would you?
Sneak Peak
It’s common to have to redesign bonsai over time. A branch dies; you find a better front; and in the case of established forest plantings you lose trees, which have to be replaced. Here’s one of those cases, and what I’m thinking of doing about it. But would you?
BC Forest – Would You?
For those of you who have been following my blog for the past few years, you probably recall seeing this Bald cypress forest that was left to me by my late bonsai friend Allen Gautreau. This is the earliest photo I have of the forest, which Allen did a great job putting together and maintaining.
It is worth noting that the forest started out life as nine trees. Time and chance reduced the number, and when I got it there were five.
I decided to move the forest to a new container, a vintage tray by the late Richard Robertson, a few months later. I also did a little redesigning, as I thought the placement of the secondary group was too close to the primary. I also snugged the trees in a little bit.
The next overwintering claimed the largest specimen in the secondary group.
Here we are, in the third growing season since the repotting. All of the trees are doing well, but of course there’s that problem of the fifth tree. The obvious thing to do would be to plant another small seedling and get it on its way to maturity in the forest. But what if there’s another answer?
What if I go bigger – quite a bit bigger? I recently acquired this specimen, which looked like a natural future flat-top. I re-chopped it yesterday, and will start the crown-building process once I have the new shoots I need. But in the meantime ….
What if the original forest, with its original focal specimen, suddenly became the smaller trees? I’m thinking that the big tree will look best not out front, which is typical, but rather as a towering specimen that pushes the forest perspective in what would be the opposite direction from normal practice. We try to create the impression of depth in our forest plantings by having larger trees placed toward the front of the container. This is the most common way of doing things, and it works great. But who’s to say you can’t reverse that, under the right circumstances, and end up with a forest planting that works visually and artistically.
I’m thinking I’m going to do this soon. The question is, Would you?
Stay tuned for updates.
Update 5/17: I had a large forest tray on the bench that Byron Myrick made for me several years ago. Although the color would not be my first choice for a BC forest, the size seems to be just right.
I think there’s a lot of potential in this design. I’ll know if it’s paid off once I’m able to build the crown of the primary tree. I the meantime, I think this has the makings of a pretty nice forest. How about you?
I love the BC forest, just think you’re going to need a couple more trees a little smaller than the new one. But once you canopy grows out it could fool us though?? That is my rookie opinion.
We’ll see, John. I’m thinking that in this planting the negative space between the primary tree and those two smallest trees is critical. It’ll be a lot easier to tell once I build the crown of the primary tree.
Sounds good Zach, looking forward to seeing the outcome. I am looking at putting a 5 tree BC forest together similar in size to your original? Let me know if you have anything available? Thanks, I enjoy your site.
I only have smaller seedlings, John, not the size of the original group. They’re a couple years away.
Looks great!
Thank you, Jack.
That’s a great perspective Zach, I see this in nature around the swamps and BC groves where I live all the time. Excited to watch the progression.
Thank you for the feedback, Kyle. It takes a bit of imagination to see where this forest is heading, but I’m confident my vision will pay off in a couple of years.
very nice, but yea maybe a brown pot allso could you turn it & give us a shot with the bigger tree in front, Thank you for sharing I look forward to your blogs Thank you again.
very nice, & yea a brown poy maybe allso could you turn it around & give us a shot with new tree in front? thank you for sharing I really look forward to your blogs.
What I wonder is how you disentangled all the old roots. Did you wash them completely, leave in some old soil, or what? I’m guessing it was a tedious job.
Well, the beauty of this repotting was I only had to slice the current forest into two parts, nice flat roots, then place them into the new tray on top of a thin layer of soil. I turned the smaller pair so the smaller tree was toward the back. I did wash most of the soil off the large new tree, but the root-pruning was minimal.
I like it.
I like the concept of the large tree behind the smaller trees; it reminds me of going into a cypress dome, as seen in the Big Cypress Swamp in South Florida, where the larger trees are where the water is deeper towards the center of the dome. Can you give some idea of the size/scale of your composition?
The current tray is obviously too small for the re-imagined forest, so to start I’ll be going to a larger pot. The new main tree will be about 33-36″ tall, and the current height of the planting is about 26″. I’m thinking I can pull off the perspective as long as I get the positioning right.
It may work if it were less symmetrical, and if the trunk colors would be closer.
What about placing the new tree on one side, as “the ancient flat top,” and have the other trees grouped together to set it off?
I think I will have to reposition to correct the symmetry issue, Pierre; you and the others picked up on that. And I might have to rethink the groupings, as you noted. As for the trunk color, almost all collected BC have the reddish/cinnamon colored bark when they come out of the ground. After two or three years they take on a more grayish, aged appearance. This one should be no different.
Just a little more negative space to the left of the new biggest tree and I think this will look great. A slight lean in the smallest tree away from the larger forest canopy may be realistic.
Thanks for the feedback, Jack. I will be doing some repositioning with the repotting, so I should be able to get the spacing just right.
With repotting???
Yes, the current pot just won’t accommodate everything.
I like it, obviously blending the new primary tree canopy and the old primary tree will be critical in pulling it off
You’re right, Clem. Had to use my future vision to see what it was going to look like, and that’s not always accurate.
I think the new addition is a bit out of scale with the rest. Sort of like plopping a T. Rex in with a bunch of alligators. Maybe it will blend in more once the canopy develops more.
I’ll probably have to adjust the positioning some during the repotting.
I love the idea And wonder, in addition, about two other small trees in front left? 5 in that wonderful pot looks a little spark, even with the big tree added. Love your posts…
That could happen, Rodger. When you start working on a forest you (should) have a plan, but sometimes you have to adjust along the way.