by Zach Smith | Jul 5, 2015 | Bald Cypress, Care, Wiring
This is the bald cypress I’ve been working on for a couple of years now. If you compare this photo with earlier ones, you’ll no doubt conclude the growth has simply exploded this year. This is one reason I just love bald cypress as a bonsai specimen. Nothing much bothers the species, and they’re very fast and easy to train.
There are some challenges, of course, but this is true of any species. With bald cypress you have two that matter: their apical dominance must be kept in control, and by summer their foliage tends to get shaggy and stressed if you grow them in full sun as I do.
The easiest way to solve the foliage stress problem is to simply remove all the foliage. Early July is a good time to do this in the South. I’m guaranteed to get a nice fresh round of growth starting in a couple of weeks, meaning I’ll have a tree that can be shown in the fall if I want to.
So here’s the result. Now you can see more clearly just how much of a challenge apical dominance is in bald cypress. Look at the twiggy growth, most of which is doing its best to grow straight up! If you guessed that my next move is to put a (temporary) stop to this, you guessed right.
My first step was to rewire and reposition the main leaders. If you go back to my earlier article on this tree, you’ll see that they were more horizontally oriented. I had them wired this past spring, but I had to remove the wire a couple of months ago as it was biting in. And so, being a bald cypress, the tree responded by trying to point those leaders back up.
And finally, I had to say goodbye too all those twigs. No pain, no gain. When you’re working on your trees, you always have to keep in mind your final silhouette. As your trees grow and you prune and pinch them, the natural tendency is to let them get too broad for their trunk thickness and height. For this particular tree, if you imagine what the finished crown will look like it quickly becomes apparent that the primary leaders had to be shortened. These primary leaders will backbud, throwing shoots that can be trained into secondary leaders. These secondary leaders will then be pruned and pinched to produce the tertiary and finer ramification that will make this a believable bonsai.
(What’s left of) this tree is available at our Bald Cypress Bonsai page. It’ll ship once it’s got a new week’s worth of strong growth behind it.
by Zach Smith | Jun 7, 2015 | Bald Cypress, Care, Oaks
Spring is just about over, and that means certain bonsai chores need doing. It’s a pretty sure bet that a lot of wire applied in winter-spring is cutting in about now, so going around removing wire is a task that tends to occupy a part of your time over the course of two to four weeks depending on species and how rapid the growth has been. I always get some wire marks, no matter how closely I watch things. As long as the marks aren’t too deep, they grow out in a couple of seasons.
Another chore is initial training of certain trees that are intended to go out as partly or fully trained specimens. This bald cypress is a good example. It was collected in February of this year and direct-potted into this very nice Byron Myrick oval. Since then it’s grown like cypresses do – tall and fast, with strong apical dominance. In fact, the top has been strong at the expense of the lower branches. I can’t afford to let this go on or the lower branches will weaken and possibly die. So I have to restore the balance of growth.
About 15 minutes later, here’s what I ended up with. The lone apical shoot has thickened very well; I do need to let it continue to run this year. Next spring I’ll do some work on the original chop so that as the callus tissue swells I won’t get a reserve taper. Meanwhile, I’ll continue pinching the growth in the upper reaches of the tree while allowing the lower branches to run and thicken.
Here’s a shot of the sweetgum forest I first put together last month. I only lost two of the smaller trees, which I’ve since replaced. The remainder have budded back out, so I’ll let them grow out the rest of 2015 and then start doing some refinement pruning in 2016.
Finally, here’s a water oak I collected back in Winter 2014. I don’t recall why I collected it; I usually only look for trees with a trunk line already established, that only require building a branch structure and a new apex. But no matter, it found its way here and lived and grew, so I owed it to the tree to go ahead and do the developmental work needed to get it on its way to becoming a bonsai. Besides, I love oak bonsai and have quite a few in the ground fattening up. Nothing wrong with one already in a nursery pot.
This next step is a challenge for many new bonsai enthusiasts. Beginning with the tree above, what do you do? The most common tendency (mistake) is to try and wire a tree structure with the shoots that have regrown following collection/chop. This is the fast and easy – but wrong – approach.
Building a bonsai from the ground up requires, first of all, a vision of the future tree. We’re all familiar with certain principles of bonsai: trunk tapering from soil level to apex; trunk movement that suggests the normal vicissitudes of a tree struggling to grow against all odds; and a branch structure that makes both horticultural as well as artistic sense. Starting with the tree above, it might be hard to see where to begin this process. The photo at left is intended to show the right (and painstaking) second step in getting from ho-hum collected trunk to the eventual proper design. It just took courage in cutting, which is often a big stumbling block. (I think you may be able to see the carving I did after selecting my new leader. As the new leader grows and the cut begins to heal over, I should get a nice smooth transition.)
Here’s a rule of thumb that will never lead you astray: when chopping a trunk or branch that has no/little taper or that ceases to be interesting, measure the diameter at the base and then measure out three diameters from the originating point (plus or minus a little bit). That’s where you make your cut. If you look closely at this photo, you’ll see that the original trunk measures roughly three basal diameters to the new leader that emerges from it, and that that leader is roughly three basal diameters in length to the point where it’s been cut, and I’ve wired up a new leader which I’ll let run for the remainder of the 2015 growing season. And next year? You guessed it: it gets cut back to three basal diameters in length.
What about a branch structure? At some point I’ll be selecting appropriate shoots to wire into position. I don’t have to create the entire trunk structure before doing this, just the base of the tree. Once I get this right, the rest should fall into place.
Stay tuned for updates.
by Zach Smith | May 31, 2015 | Bald Cypress, Care, Potting, Wiring
It’s the time of year to do initial styling on bald cypresses collected this past winter. I had posted this specimen earlier in the season, and mentioned my idea of a style for it that represented something I’ve never done before. There’s nothing like a rainy Sunday afternoon to dive into some styling work.
Photo number one at left shows the strong growth of this tree since I collected it. Even going straight into a bonsai pot – in this case, a nice Chuck Iker round – doesn’t hinder regrowth all that much. With bald cypress, unlike many other deciduous species, you tend to have more than enough to work with in terms of new shoots!
Dealing with the lower parts of this tree was not particularly challenging. You can never go wrong with the classic rules for styling your tree. First branch, second branch, back branch, on and on until you get to the apex. But what you can see from this photo, perhaps a little more clearly than in the first, is that huge mass of new apical shoots has got to be dealt with! Bald cypress does this every time. It’s just how the species wants to grow. So it’s imperative that you rebalance growth before things get out of hand, or the lower branches will weaken and die.
In choosing the new leader for this tree, I needed to avoid the tendency to “over-style” the tree. It’s more than clear, even in the first photo above, that there’s a certain graceful movement to this trunk that has no need of being interrupted. So rather than try to get all “artistic” with it, the obvious answer was to simply go with the flow. That made choosing very easy.
And here’s how it all turned out. This tree has a very simple shape, and it’s saying all it needs to say in a pretty strong way. Remember the key time-tested rule of bonsai:
Less is more.
by Zach Smith | Mar 29, 2015 | Bald Cypress, Care, Chinese Elm, Elms, Wiring
I love when my trees begin to bud in the very early spring, especially the new arrivals, but I’m just awestruck when spring really kicks in. Shoots start extending, and you get a glimpse of the health of each and every one of your bonsai and pre-bonsai.
The photo of this tree in the March 17 post was taken a mere 12 days ago. Is this not amazing? And the growth is just beginning. Now, bald cypress is one of the strongest growers in the bonsai world. To be sure, they miniaturize in container culture, but this doesn’t stop them from budding up and down the trunk just as if they has no restrictions at all.
I’ll be wiring this one in another week or two, removing that wire in another three or four, and going into a second round of training this summer. By that time I’ll have a specimen which only needs refinement.
Remember this Chinese elm I posted for sale on February 28th? Well, here’s what a few week’s worth of spring weather will do:
Aren’t Chinese elms wonderful? Even if you end up with an “S” curve specimen, there’s hope. You just have to dedicate yourself to overcoming its inherent design flaw, but the process of doing so gives you the opportunity to work with what is truly one of the very best bonsai species for beginners. Drop me an email if you need some advice.
by Zach Smith | Mar 17, 2015 | Bald Cypress, Care, Chinese Elm, Elms, Winged Elm
Spring isn’t quite here officially, but the vast majority of my trees think it is and are popping buds to prove it. Here are a few trees that will be hitting the sale pages in the coming weeks.
Bald cypress – Taxodium distichum
Check out the buds on this one! And they’re not just on the existing branches, but all over the trunk as well. Those of you who’ve worked with bald cypress before know that these trees never stop budding on the trunk. You just have to keep rubbing them off during the growing season.
This specimen has a 3″ trunk diameter above the root crown and stands 27″ above the soil surface. Age is estimated to be 30 years. I plan to complete wiring of the secondary branch structure this spring, so the tree should be available at our Bald Cypress Bonsai page sometime in May.
The pot is an outstanding Byron Myrick oval.
Chinese elm – Ulmus parvifolia
Seven-tree forest just assembled this year from cutting-grown material. Everything is budding, which means I’ll have a nice forest canopy and good structure for the individual trees by summer, at which time I plan to offer it for sale.
The largest tree has a 3/4″ diameter trunk and stands 17-1/2″ tall.
Nice shallow oval by Paul Katich.
Winged elm – Ulmus alata
Exposed root style specimen just collected this winter. Buds are popping now. The trunk base is 1-1/2″ above the root crown; the rootage is 4″ across at the soil surface. Height 13″ to the chop. Age about 10 years.
This one gets its first wiring next month, and should have a nice branch structure by summer. Watch for it to hit the Elm Bonsai page in June.
The pot is a vintage Richard Robertson piece I bought back in 1990.
by Zach Smith | Feb 15, 2015 | Bald Cypress, Care, Potting, Wiring
I collected this bald cypress in January 2013. I couldn’t resist a great flaring base, great trunk movement, twisting gray bark, and that interesting “elbow” on the right-hand flaring root.
I let the tree grow out unrestrained in 2013. When 2014 came, I selected the new leader for the tree and made the second, angled chop in the apex of the tree. The new leader was allowed to run, which began the rolling over process at the original chop point. By last summer I felt the tree was ready for a bonsai pot, and I happened to have gotten this extraordinary Chuck Iker round that worked perfectly. Its color is virtually the same as new cypress bark.
Now, as you observe this tree one of the things that stands out is the abrupt change of taper in the apex. This is nothing unusual; in fact, it’s one of the developmental processes you go through with any trunk-chopped specimen you grow as bonsai. A tapering transition must be built. This process is different with bald cypress, due to the powerful apical dominance of the species. Instead of a straight cut, then select your leader and let it run, then angle cut and ultimately carve to smooth, you have an intermediate stage where the initial angle cut is only part-way between the new leader and the opposite side of the trunk. This tree has moved beyond that point, and is ready for attention in the tapering transition point.
Here’s a close-up of the transitioning point. It’s easier to see where the problem is. Next is the transition from another angle.
You can see where the callus tissue has begun rolling over nicely from the edges. But they’re pretty ragged, so today is a good time to fix that too.
First cut. I have to remove the excess wood in the lower part of the second chop. This is a vital part of making the eventual tapering transition believable.
Next cuts. Carving this area down is going to make the tapering of the trunk more believable. It’s all visual trickery.
Remember, the art of bonsai is the art of illusion. Our basic goal is to make a two foot tall tree look like a 100 foot tall tree. So we establish a tapering trunk from ground to apex, in order to trick our mind into seeing something taller. We build a set of branches that reflect the tapering trunk in silhouette as well as individually, with their own sub-branching that reflect the trunk-primary branch relationship. The bottom line is, if I don’t get this part of the development right, the rest just won’t work. You may have seen many bonsai where this essential work was not done or not done properly.
Now I’m done cutting for this round. It’s important to understand that the new leader still has to thicken at its base. I’ve already cut it back for spring (it was two feet taller), and I’ll allow a new leader to run for a while. I expect to cut back hard again by June, and the final round of growth for 2015 should bring me much closer to the ideal transition I’m working toward.
Finally, a trim and wiring. This year should see a tremendous advance toward making this a fine specimen bald cypress bonsai.
Do you like this tree? Let me know. Leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you.
