Bald Cypress | Bonsai South

One Of The Big Trees I’m Keeping, An Awesome Bald Cypress

by Zach Smith | Sep 24, 2017 | Bald Cypress, Care, Pruning, Styling, Wiring, ZPC

In keeping with the weekend’s theme, I wanted to update you on one of the big trees I’m keeping, an awesome Bald cypress (Taxodium distichum). The last time I blogged on this one was in July.

July is Bald cypress defoliation season.

If your tree is in good health with a solid root system, you can defoliate every July right at the beginning of the month.

There are a couple of reasons for this: one, you get in some extra training as defoliation allows you to put on some wire (possibly after removing any that’s biting in) and bend some of those branches that insist on being straight; and two, you get a fresh set of foliage that allows you to avoid the ratty looking late summer foliage typical of BC.

Here’s the tree back on July 3rd. The branches are coming along, and the apex I’m building is likewise getting closer to the size I need it. I’ve grown out and chopped back the leader a couple of times now. In another two or three years, I should have the crown completely developed.

And here we are today, just shy of three months later.

Doesn’t this foliage look great?

For those of you who have experience growing Bald cypress, you know what they look like in September if you just leave them to grow through summer. Not very pretty.

Notice how much stronger the growth is in the upper part of the tree.

I have many branches growing straight up. This is normal behavior for most species grown for bonsai. They’re usually all cut down to control their height, and they’re all programmed to get as tall as they can as fast as they can. So it’s only natural for them to send growth skyward.

This is all I’ll do for today, just tidying up the growth by removing the up-growth and trimming to shape. I’ve removed more from the upper part of the tree than from lower down, in order to keep the energy balanced.

There’s plenty of development left to do on this tree, but it’ll wait till next spring. In late winter I’ll do a thorough wiring and some aggressive shaping of the branches. Cypress branches all want to grow straight. That’s pretty boring, so I’ll have to correct it before they become so stiff I can no longer bend them.

Let me know what you think of my progress so far.

Just This One Last Big Tree … I Think

by Zach Smith | Sep 23, 2017 | Bald Cypress, Care, Collecting

A couple of weeks ago I measured the height of stupidity at 25 feet, because I collected this massive Sycamore that had to be chopped down from that height.

At the time I observed that getting older means working with fewer really massive trees.

They really are a lot of weight to move around. Oh, it’s okay to have one on the bench, provided you limit the number of moves you make with it. But a lot of the problem is getting the tree from the ground (saw and lift, wash and chop roots, pot into growing tub) to the bench.

So the Sycamore lived, as you can see in today’s updated photo.

We’re still four weeks away from the dead-end of growth for 2017, so I anticipate additional foliar growth during that time, most likely a need to do some wiring, and then this tree will be limited to root growth (which I doubt has really gotten much under way yet).

Root growth will continue on into fall, so I’m pretty confident this tree will be ready to rock and roll in 2018. We’ll know then.

As many of you know, Bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) is one of my absolute favorite species for bonsai, and it’s certainly the most popular with my clients. I never seem to have enough of them. So I reached out to a local fellow collector to see if he had any extra material sitting around that he was willing to part with. I picked up a handful of nice specimens today. This is the biggest one I got.

With a trunk base of 8″ (8″ above the soil surface) and a root spread of 20″, this Bald cypress fits right in the category of trees I’m too old to lug around. It’s got to weight close to 100 pounds. At the same time, I know there’s someone out there who has just got to have this tree. So once we’ve matched tree to BC lover, my wrestling days with this one will come to an end. Meanwhile, it’s very impressive and has an assigned spot on the bench from which it will not move.

How A Few Trees Will Get A Lot Better In 2018

by Zach Smith | Sep 15, 2017 | Bald Cypress, Care

It’s a safe bet to say we spend most of our time in the pursuit of bonsai looking toward the future. Why? Well, with the exception of the perfect or “finished” bonsai on our benches, everything’s a work in progress. So we look ahead to what we’re going to do today when we wire our trees, or what we may need to do next week when it’s time to pinch, or what we plan to do next growing season. It’s September, so my thoughts are running to the next growing season. I’ve just about gotten all I can from this one.

Here’s a Chinese privet, Ligustrum sinense, that I potted earlier this year.

The reason this tree came out of the ground is the very neat shari on the trunk. This feature will be with the tree essentially forever, since the growth going forward will be slow enough that the healing process won’t overtake it. So all that leaves is building the rest of the tree. I wired a new leader and some branches earlier this year. The growth has been pretty good. But I’ve still only got a leader with some leaves on it. It used to be a couple of feet longer, but I went ahead and clipped it for the purpose of this blog. There’s little growth left this year, so I won’t be missing anything.

How will this tree get a lot better in 2018?

First of all, my leader is going to produce buds in the leaf axils all along it. From these I’ll be able to select crown branches, and wire and position them. As they grow, and as the new leader I’ll select grows, its base will continue to thicken and that will make the tapering transition look smoother. I should make very good progress on this in 2018. In fact, I’d predict that with judicious pruning and pinching and wiring and shaping, I’ll mostly have a Privet bonsai in hand by the end of next year.

This Bald cypress, Taxodium distichum, has been grown from seed. It’s just a few years old. But I was able to make something of it this year – a future windswept flat-top style Cypress bonsai. Though it’s a very juvenile tree, there’s already a design with just four branches and a leader in the crown. It actually looks like something. But you can clearly see the youth here.

How does this tree get better in 2018? I have a couple of chores that will need to be done. One is to control the growth of the branches already in place. I’ll do this by first letting them grow uncontrolled, and then doing a hard pruning and wiring as needed.

The second chore is to work on the crown. I have a leader for my flat-top idea, but that’s all. It needs to fill out a lot more, and thicken more (though I have to be careful with this). I’ll do more in the crown more often than elsewhere. I can’t afford to let it get away from me.

What about the trunk, meaning the bark and the appearance of age? That’s going to come in time. As early as next year I may see the bark starting to take on some age. Even if this doesn’t happen, it’s only a matter of time.

Here’s an impressive Cedar elm, Ulmus crassifolia.

It was a bit sluggish coming off collection in April, and it took some coaxing to get it to finally kick in some strong growth. In the case of this tree, however, that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Why? Well, in the case of each of the three trunks of this tree, they suffered some dieback.

While we don’t generally want to see this happen, I actually now have the opportunity to build more taper into each of the trunks. I won’t do anything more than minimal “directing” work in 2018 as the leaders continue growing, but I will be able to control where they go. So I’ll have the best of both worlds: a great trunk base (3.5″ across), and in the future terrific taper and trunk movement.

Let me know what you think of these future bonsai. I’d love to hear from you.

How To Do A Successful Slip-Potting

by Zach Smith | Sep 4, 2017 | Bald Cypress, Care, Potting

Sooner or later you’ll encounter a situation where you’ll need (or really want) to move a tree from a nursery container to a bonsai container out of season. This can be done with a very high success rate, provided you bear in mind a few key principles. In this post I’ll show you how I moved a Bald cypress from its nursery pot to a bonsai pot because … I really wanted to.

First of all, it’s important to distinguish between slip-potting done in an attempt to save a tree’s life, and one done because you know the tree won’t mind and you get closer to your goal faster. Let’s focus on the latter.

Consider these factors before you undertake the slip-potting:

Is the tree well-rooted? You can tell by the strength of the growth, plus you can poke around in the root zone for clues
Is there enough time remaining in the growing season to allow for more root growth in time for fall dormancy (for deciduous species)?
Is the root mass of the tree shallow enough so that you don’t have to remove more than a bare minimum of roots?
Do you have a pot the tree will fit in without any drastic root-pruning (no root-pruning is ideal)?

Here’s my subject, a really nice Bald cypress I’m training as a flat-top. This is one of those trees that I knew just what to do with when I collected it. I’m sure I heard it say “Flat-top.”

The base of this tree is 3.5″ across, above the root crown, and stands about 35″ tall. It makes a nice statement.

You may have noticed that prominent dead snag on the trunk.

Looks like Pinocchio’s nose, doesn’t it?

Gotta do something about that, along with the one above it on the right (the one on the left under that living branch will be removed, once it’s served its purpose as a wire anchor).

Making a jin is not that complicated a process, once you get the hang of it. You want to make the dead snag taper down while not making it look artificial, like a sharpened pencil point.

You can either carve these with a carving knife, or do the rough work with your concave cutters. Here I’m starting on the top side.

I’ve made an angle on the top of the snag. Good start.

Now I come up underneath with my cutters, and make an angled cut as I did on top. Notice I’m also shortening this snag, which it needed.

Now the jin is ready for a little carving to make it look as natural as possible.

This one is done. It sure looks a lot different that when I started.

The smaller jin above was already the right length. It just need a little carving.

Now let’s get down to business slip-potting this tree.

Prepare your pot by placing screening over the drain holes, at least one tie-down wire, and spread a shallow layer of soil in the bottom of the pot (mostly in the center).

Gently lift the tree out of its nursery container.

You should see lots of roots, as is the case here. Nice and healthy.

All of the roots get folded into the pot.

Do not remove any long roots such as the one you see in the foreground of the photo above. Those roots are feeding the tree, and you want them to keep on doing it.

Tie the tree down, then fill in all of the empty space with well-draining soil mix.

Be careful not to damage any of the roots as you work the soil in around them.

Use a chopstick, but don’t jab it into the soil mass.

Push it in gently, then wiggle it back and forth to get the soil to settle in around the roots.

Here’s the end-result. I did some light trimming in the crown so I could see how well the flat-top is progressing. Nice.

The pot is a terrific oval by Byron Myrick. The size is just right to enhance the impression of height, and the green accents remind me of the swamp.

As far as after-care goes, you can place trees you’ve slip-potted into a shady spot for a week or so. My experience has been that a well-rooted tree really doesn’t suffer inordinately from slip-potting.

Let me know what you think. Have you tried slip-potting? Did you have good success

How To Take Advantage Of Benign Neglect

by Zach Smith | Sep 1, 2017 | Bald Cypress, Care, Styling, Wiring

You will inevitably acquire a tree that plods along, refusing to grow when it should and exhibiting no obvious reason why it’s lagging behind your others. There are only a few things to be done in such cases: one, you rip it out of the pot and toss it on the compost heap or burn pile; two, you take it to your local club meeting and give it away; or three, you move it into the “I don’t care if you live or die” section of your growing area. Though I didn’t exactly consign this Bald cypress to the latter, I certainly ignored it all season long. After collection it came out some but didn’t push buds at that point where they usually do, and didn’t weaken and die, but just sat there on the bench. At first I was sure it wouldn’t make it, but recently it decided to wake up and do a little growing. I’m now fairly certain it’ll live, and so today I figured I’d get a design started in case it does.

First a photo of the tree at Stage 0.

This tree was collected in February. This is all of the growth over a six month period.

For the typical BC, the shoots would be over a foot long with some approaching pencil thickness. Not this one. But you can see a couple of fresh new shoots pointing straight up. That was my sign that this tree had decided to live. All right, then. Time to earn your space on the bench.

The first thing I did was to remove some of the unnecessary weak shoots that are not going to live through winter. They only get in the way when you’re starting to wire out a tree.

The next thing to do, which you will be faced with as well, is to decide what style the tree is going to be and get to work selecting branches. My first impression with this one was to just go with a flat-top. It’s a slender tree with a 2″ trunk, chopped at 22″, and all of the useful foliage is in the top third of the tree. But I decided to do something different. I figured I can make this tree seem even taller than it already is, while styling it in the young-tree style for Bald cypress. That means I’ll wire the branches and pull them down, since they begin so high up. I plan to exaggerate this branch style.

I posted this photo to illustrate a point. Often when you stare at a new bonsai subject, you won’t have any clue what to do. The principle I follow is to start in the lower part of the tree and make decisions on what you know to be true. In this case, if you look at the two branches I’ve wired together, these were must do’s. They were in good spots on the trunk, on opposite sides of the trunk, and their spacing was just right. Usually, once you make this first branch-selection decision, the rest tend to fall into place.

In this shot you’ll see my plan start to take shape. My first two branches have been wired and pulled down dramatically. As they lengthen next year, I plan to let them extend while minimizing how far they terminate away from the trunk.

This should make for a dramatic design.

Fast-forward to the finished work for today. The tree has a rudimentary branch structure. I’ve selected a leader and wired it upright, keeping it close to the trunk. Sometime next year I may begin carving the chop area, depending on how strong the tree grows. In time the tapering transition into the apex will be perfect. By that time I’ll have a complete crown.

This is a decent Bald cypress, when all is said and done. Though it failed to grow with the vigor I had wanted, it did finally kick out some strength and I’m confident now it can make it through to next year. I won’t do anything else to it this year. It hung in there, it got wired, and it deserves a rest.

Let me know what you think of this guy. I’d love to read your comments.

How “Wading Bird” Gets Carved To Make It Look Better

by Zach Smith | Aug 28, 2017 | Bald Cypress, Care, Styling

I don’t often name my trees but from time to time one comes along that just has to be named. “Wading Bird” the Bald cypress is one of those trees. For a little background, I collected this specimen back in February and placed it directly into this exquisite Chuck Iker pot. It’s risky doing this sort of thing, but I have good success at it. So the tree came out and proceeded to grow. From the beginning I had planned a “tall-tree” style bonsai, a flat-top of course to further the impression of height and age. So I began training the branches and new leader with that in mind. Fast-forward to now.

As the caption says, things need to happen to “Wading Bird.”

The secondary trunk never showed any signs of life, and I’m pretty sure it was DOA. But it looked so natural next to its big brother I never considered removing it. I did shorten it, back to that neat-looking “beak” you can see in the photo. But it can’t stay the way it is now.

In order for the wood to last, I’ll need to treat it with lime sulfur. This will kill any vermin or pathogens that might decide to start working on that nice dead wood.

Before I treat with lime sulfur, however, the bark will need to come off. It so happens that destructive insects tend to burrow under the bark of trees and eat away inside. So by removing the bark, I also remove one of the pathways for the bad guys. And since lime sulfur tastes super nasty (I imagine – no way I’d try it), I’m confident it will give me the result I want.

Here’s a closeup of the snag I planned to create from the beginning. It was a side branch that budded out for me after collection. I removed buds from it a few times, and then it finally stopped trying. But it was still moist when I stripped off the bark.

Now, you can easily tell that this snag does not look natural. So I have more work to do on it.

Using my concave cutters followed by a carving knife, I reduced the weight of the snag and gave it a sharp point. This is much more natural looking. Note also that this snag has a similar “beak-like” appearance to the snag on the dead secondary trunk. (You might also consider the crown of the live trunk as plumage.)

Now on to the next problem. Notice that the chop point features a dead stub. This doesn’t look natural at all. I have a couple of options, either remove the bark and attempt to do some carving on it, or just carve it down into the leader. I don’t really need any dead wood to compete with the snag below it, so I resolved to just get rid of it.

Knob cutters, a carving knife and a few minutes was all it took. Now the stub is gone. As the leader thickens over the next growing season, the transition should look very nice.

I’m almost done. All that’s left now is to remove the bark from the dead secondary trunk and treat with lime sulfur. For the bark removal, I used my cordless Dremel® and a sanding drum. This made quick work of it, less than 10 minutes.

By the way, notice how the two dead snags at the top of the trunks mirror each other. Is that not way cool?

Whenever you do any carving work on your trees, you need to treat the dead wood with lime sulfur. As I mentioned above, this helps preserve the wood by killing any pathogens present. It also discourages new ones from setting up shop.

In 2018 I’ll turn my attention to developing the branch structure of this tree. It’s far too “rangy” at present, and needs a tighter structure to enhance the image of height. I gave it a light trim this go-round. Next spring, after the first flush of growth, I’ll cut back hard and rewire the branches. Given how quickly BC grow, I should have made a lot of progress by the end of the 2018 growing season.

So, whatcha think about “Wading Bird”?

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