by Zach Smith | Oct 29, 2015 | Care, Flowering, Hawthorn
I chose this riverflat hawthorn, Crataegus opaca, to test the potential for collecting hawthorn species in October. I know I’ve mentioned before that hawthorns are relatively easy to collect, with a 90% survival rate – a very consistent rate I’ve experienced over the past 25 years. But I’ve always collected them in January, when the dormant period is at its peak. I had gone out to collect water-elms earlier this month, having been told they did well when collected this time of year, and decided to push the envelope with hawthorns just to see what would happen. So I brought this one home.
Here we are, almost three weeks later. The foliage I left on the tree dried up pretty quickly, so I took it off not knowing what that might mean (but hoping it didn’t mean sap withdrawal). Then I ignored it for a couple of weeks. The other day I took a close-up look, and what did I find? Tiny, ruby-colored terminal buds on three of the branchlets. These are viable buds; I know exactly what they look like, from long experience. So at least for now, it’s clear this tree is wanting to recover from the October harvest.
I don’t know how much actual shoot growth I’ll get, heading into dormancy not too long from now. The main thing worth keeping an eye on is how this tree behaves going into spring, assuming it survives through winter, and what sort of strength it’ll exhibit in the 2016 growing season.
by Zach Smith | Oct 25, 2015 | Care, Elms, Water Elm, Watering
You first saw this water-elm on August 16th. Dimensionally, it’s the biggest I’ve ever collected, sporting a trunk base 6″ across and measuring 42″ along the length of the trunk (but only 28″ in height from the soil surface). In terms of character, I’ve never collected anything better. It’s no exaggeration to say this is a very significant water-elm pre-bonsai – in size and style, certainly rare if not unique.
If you consider most examples of this species, the typical form for less than fully mature non-primary specimens is bush-like (water-elm does not get more than about 40 feet tall). Smaller trees tend to have two or more trunks. This form persists as they get larger, but you typically see one large trunk, one or two that are somewhat smaller, then one or more whip-sized trunks emerging from the root base. This makes collecting both exciting and challenging, as you don’t necessarily want everything to be multi-trunk. And it’s for this reason that I’m always excited to find a single-trunk example. Cathy found this one, and I was stoked. I have no idea what happened to it, but it was growing near a heavily traveled swamp road and most likely was run over by a truck untold years ago. Forced over, damaged, it nonetheless grew on.
I’ve mentioned in a previous blog post that my August collecting efforts were not as successful as I would have liked. It’s just one of those things that happens, tough to foresee. Despite this, about four weeks ago I noticed roots growing across one of the drainage holes of this tree’s nursery container. That was all I needed to know. I was sure this amazing water-elm specimen was going to make it.
I’ve pretty much ignored the tree over the past month. Along with everything else, it got watered three times a day as we’ve had mostly warm weather through mid- to late-October. But nothing more.
Today I was shocked to see a shoot pushing right near the chop on this tree. It was something I really didn’t expect, despite the fact that I knew this tree had made a lot of roots over the past couple of months. I figured it would simply wait until Spring 2016 to bud out.
So we’ll see how much growth we get before the inevitable cool-off happens, then it’s on to winter and the long wait till April when water-elms bud out. Assuming all goes well, I should be doing an initial wiring and shaping by early May. You’ll see updates as the tree progresses from collected trunk to bonsai.
And of course, it’s absolutely a requirement that this tree needs to have “Dragon” in its name. I’m not sure if it needs anything else, but that part is settled.
Let me know what you think of this tree.
by Zach Smith | Oct 24, 2015 | Bald Cypress, Care, Flowering, Oaks, Potting
I first met Allen Gautreau (“Go Tro” – it’s one of those Cajun names) in 1986, when my rekindled interest in bonsai had me seeking out local enthusiasts. He was new to the art, as was I. While I don’t recall that many details of our early encounters, I know we went on at least one collecting trip together and a nursery hunt.
The latter occasion got Allen this crape myrtle, dug from a field growing bed at an eclectic nursery outside of Baton Rouge. His notes say I helped him. The tree isn’t huge, so I suspect my help was limited to the selection process. Regardless, he worked on it over the next few decades and the tree is now a very mature bonsai that has come into my care. I think it’s got great character. Better still, it has great meaning for me.
By 1989 I had advanced enough in my study and practice of bonsai that I decided to begin teaching classes. My first class consisted of three beginners; Allen was one of them. As I recall, the course was three sessions long, each one lasting four or five hours. But memory fades, so I could certainly be off on my numbers.
No one who lives in the Deep South and loves bonsai doesn’t want a nice live oak bonsai. Problem is, they aren’t that easy to collect. On the other hand, they take to container life very well and are easy to train. Given their great features, I often wonder why more artists don’t grow the species.
Allen usually acquired his live oak pre-bonsai from nurseries selling end-of-season inventory on the cheap. These landscape-bound trees would be chopped down to just a few inches in most cases, then a new compact trunk grown in the “grow and chop” fashion. He worked with a number of specimens over the years that were created this way. A few years ago he gave me one of these trees that had been chopped and trained in the common live oak style, a short main trunk with multiple sub-trunks flaring off from it, some sweeping down to the ground. I reduced the root mass drastically and placed the tree in a shallow tray, to emphasize its style, and was working on development of the multiple sub-trunks when Winter 2014 hit. Alas, my gifted live oak bonsai didn’t survive.
I think that’s why Allen wanted me to have this tree to care for. I’m not sure if this is the only one he actually collected from the wild, but there couldn’t have been that many. His notes say it was dug in 1997, cut back and training begun. Here it is, 18 years later. In 2009 it was worked on in a session with Joe Day, and repotted in 2011, 2012 and 2014. The maturity of the structure of this tree is good testimony to the great work Allen put into it.
And finally, no bonsai collection is complete without bald cypress – doesn’t matter where you live. This forest was started in 2010. I don’t know its entire story, but one tree was replaced and one died and was transformed into a feature of the forest. All in all, though, it’s a nice rendition of a swamp scene. And the tray is a signature Tokoname piece.
One of the most appealing things about the art of bonsai is we often work with tree species that possess the capacity to outlive us (often by far!). While it’s easy to observe that as we learn bonsai we tend to kill a lot of trees, still the thought of having bonsai that can outlive us is testimony to the human spirit. We’re all just passing through this life, but we all have the opportunity to leave something of ourselves to the world and make it a better place. Allen did just that. Rest in the Lord’s embrace, old friend.
by Zach Smith | Oct 18, 2015 | Care, Water Elm
Today concluded my water-elm roundup for 2015. You couldn’t have asked for better weather – temps in the 50s to start the day, rising into the 60s as the dig progressed. Better still, I brought home some real quality material. I’ll know for sure next spring if I succeeded, but in the meantime here’s a peek at some of the new specimens:
Here’s a group of trees waiting their turn to be processed.
A nice masculine specimen. Look at the radiating roots!
A beautiful twin-trunk. This one should be spectacular in a few years.
Here’s proof that you can pack a lot of tree in a small specimen. The trunk base on this one is about 1.5″.
I always like to bring home at least one really big hunky specimen each year, and this one was number two for 2015. The trunk base is 4″ and the height (after a final chop) about 32″. This tree will make quite a statement in a few short years.
by Zach Smith | Oct 10, 2015 | Care, Elms, Hawthorn, Potting, Pruning, Soil
Water-elm, Planera aquatica, is one of my big-two bonsai species along with bald cypress. I’ve probably worked on more water-elms than any other species, and I may very well have worked on more than anyone else in the art. I’ve written on more than one occasion about water-elm collecting season, which is typically July of each year for me. Most of the specimens I’ve acquired have been collected in July. I have had occasion to collect in August – successfully, I might add – and even in January. But I recently learned that it’s possible to collect the species in October. Because my August success rate this year wasn’t all that great, I decided it was time to push the water-elm collecting envelope and see what happens.
This one came with a soil ball clinging to the roots. I don’t always get a soil ball – much less than half the time, in fact – but I’m always glad when it happens. If you look past the grass you can see the trunk base I saw. Definitely a worthwhile piece of material if it lives.
With all of the native soil washed off, you can see all the nice roots that came with this one. When I collect trees I’m primarily interested in the trunk. Roots can be grown pretty easily, and the whole branch structure has to be grown almost every time. It’s the trunk, and especially those with age and character, that are worth the hunt.
I included this photo to show you one of the reasons you have to be very careful with certain elm species. On both American elms and water-elms, the bark will peel easily on branches/sub-trunks you’re cutting as well as chops and, perhaps most significantly, roots. Even with sharp tools you have the potential for this to happen. If it does, do your best to do as I did in this case, peel away the bark along the wood you’re discarding. Then you can come back and cleanly cut the strip of bark.
Now everything’s cleaned up and I’ve made the final cut of the trunk to the length I want. The roots are cut flat and trimmed to fit, ultimately, the size bonsai pot this tree will reside in.
Potted in a nursery container. As always I’ve buried the roots deep enough to prevent their drying out.
The trunk base of this specimen is 3″, and it’s 13″ to the chop. The trunk character is really nice.
So, what with all the envelope pushing I got a wild hair and decided to find out if hawthorns can be collected in October. This is a nice old riverflat hawthorn, Crataegus opaca, with a 2″ trunk base.
More good luck with roots, as you can see. This one has a fine radial root system.
And snugged into its pot until next spring. The angle of the photo doesn’t allow the taper to show as well as it could. The base of this tree is 2″ and the diameter of the chop is 1″, which is the ratio you need. The height to the chop is 18″ from the soil surface. I’m thinking it could be chopped again by 3-4″, but this decision doesn’t have to be made right away. Once your hawthorns are recovered from collecting you have a lot of latitude in working with them.
by Zach Smith | Oct 4, 2015 | Care
During each collecting season I choose one or two bald cypresses that I can put directly into bonsai pots and “fast-track” develop. This one had what is without a doubt the finest basal buttress for a tree its size.
This photo was taken in June, after I did the initial styling. The trunk base is 3″ thick 3″ above the soil surface. The buttress is all the way around the trunk, forming a root spread of 6″ at the soil surface. The tree is 22″ to the original chop, and should finish at about 28-30″.
After the initial styling I left the tree completely alone (benign neglect), only feeding and watering it. I would ordinarily defoliate the tree in July, but since this one had just been potted in 2015 I wanted to be sure not to stress it. So it took the brunt of our normal Deep South summer, meaning stressed foliage.
Not to mention growth of extra shoots wherever the tree decides to put them. What a mess! But there’s a bonsai-in-the-making here if you look hard enough. Today I decided to do a final cleanup and pruning for 2015.
This took less than 10 minutes but made a huge difference. I stripped off the dead foliage and removed all of the excess shoots. I selected a single new leader and wired it into position for next spring. That’s when I’ll do the angled cut at the original chop, which is the next step in the process of creating a smooth tapering transition that will ultimately take about four years.
You’ll also notice that I’ve pruned back the branches in the upper part of the tree harder than the ones lower down. Bald cypress is apically dominant, so the branches nearer the apex grow faster and stronger than those lower in the tree. This imbalance of energy has to be managed … but not in year one. During recovery following collection it’s best to allow your trees to grow out with minimal interference. If you’re working on a tree that’s been direct-potted, you take special care not to let lateral branches near the crown get too thick. Otherwise, you wait until year two to exercise more control of branch strength. Next year I’ll diligently pinch the branches near the crown and allow the lower branches to run in order to thicken. By year three I should have a good balance of energy and a better ability to manage apical strength.
Let me know what you think of this tree. I think it’s going to be a great bonsai one day.
