Shohin American Elm Progress

by | Aug 22, 2020 | American Elm, Care, Elms, Most Recent, Styling, Wiring

shohin american elm progress

the bonsai files

Sneak Peek

You can build a shohin bonsai quickly, provided you have the right species to work with. This American elm is a good example of this.

Shohin American Elm Progress

I’ve shown you this small American elm pre-bonsai before, the theme being you can build a small tree by first building a tall tree. This is a good example of the technique, which you should master as it teaches quite a few skills you’re going to use often along the way.

The first thing to take note of here is the two changes of direction in the trunk, both of which take place in a space of less than six inches.

This photo is from July of this year, a few weeks after a much taller tree got cut down to size.

 

 

 

This closeup is to show you the two cuts that were made at the same time. The original trunk had some curve near the base, and forked to the left at that point since a node existed there and a branch had emerged and was allowed to grow out for thickening of the base. Notice not only the change of direction but also the change of thickness (created taper). This is vital when building a small informal upright bonsai.

So I selected a few branches and a leader and wired them (carefully!). Tender shoots are very easy to pop off a branch or trunk – and I have done so many times.

A week after the above shot was taken, you can see growth pushing and especially in the leader which is wired upright to encourage it.

This shot was taken just shy of a month after the one above. See what can happen with a vigorous species! But that’s American elm for you.

Now it’s time for the next round of work. I can’t let the leader go unchecked, as doing so will adversely affect the taper in the apex.

It’s worth studying this photo closely. What’s very important is the thickness of the leader that I’ve cut back to three nodes’ length. If I allowed the leader to continue growing over the next month, the transition point between the second chop point and the new leader would have been ruined. Why? First of all, its thickness would have quickly approached that of the chop point. Remember that as the crown grows out, more thickening is going to happen. In order to properly finish off the tapering trunk, I had to stop the leader from drawing more strength than it’s going to when it buds back out (this will happen in a week or so). This is what I often refer to as “cooling off” a branch or leader. Also, I’ll be pruning the leader back to the first node once the new growth there has pushed out a couple of leaves. This will ensure I don’t ruin the taper I’ve been creating, and will also keep the strength reigned in. By the time this last round of growth is over, it’s going to be about time for the season to be coming to an end. My goal at that time will be to keep any residual strength under control. That will allow me to pot up this tree in Spring 2021 and finish out the design by focusing on ramification.

Let me know what you think of this little guy.

Where Should That BC Trunk Chop Go?

by | Aug 19, 2020 | Bald Cypress, Care, Most Recent, Pruning, Styling, Wiring

where should that bc trunk chop go?

the bonsai files

Sneak Peek

Essentially all collected large Bald cypresses are trunk-chopped. In the wild they may be 20 feet tall. When you get them home they end up 2 feet tall. Then you start building.

Where Should that BC Trunk Chop Go?

 

I acquired this nice stout Bald cypress back in May. It’s definitely a masculine tree, with a solid 4.5″ base (5″ above the soil) and decent fluting. As you can see, it pushed a very strong leader and that leader was dominant enough that it ended up with no real competition. Considering that this view of the tree is definitely the front, I was presented with two options: one, proceed with the angled chop despite the position of the leader; or two, chop it off and wait for new buds and hope one of them is smack dab in front. I decided to go with option one. The idea of losing all that progress just didn’t appeal to me, and besides, I’m very confident I can make it work as-is.

 

 

 

I do the angled trunk chop from the bottom up, using a large trunk splitter. Here you can see I’ve taken about half the bite out of this trunk so far. The leader lies below the original chop, so I need to get out my saw and level off the chop point before continuing.

Here’s what this ends up looking like. You can see the horizontal cut ends right where the leader emerges from the trunk. I need more wood up here in order to keep the rolling callus from producing a reverse taper (but not as much as you see here!). More carving is needed.

This is a textbook example of how a BC angled trunk chop should look. When the callus starts to roll, it’s going to be stronger at the top than the bottom. If you can picture the shape of the callus as more or less the reverse of the chop, you’ll see that when it’s rolled over completely I’m going to have a very smooth taper all the way from the bottom of the chop through to the base of the leader (and on up from there as I grow and chop the leader itself). The whole process will take about five to seven years, given the size of the wound. The trunk measured about 2.5″ across at the original chop, so that’s a good bit of ground for the callus to cover. But it will.

I figured that while I was at it, I might as well wire out the branches in the main part of the trunk. I left the branches on the leader alone, because they’re all going away when it gets chopped back. For now, I want all the growth up there I can get so the leader thickens going into fall. I’ll chop in late winter, in preparation for the emergence of the next leader in spring.

So back to the original question: Where should that BC trunk chop go? Ideally, in front. But you’ll eventually get a changeup from your tree instead of a fastball, so you adjust and make it work. This is going to work, and it’s going to work well. It’ll just take some time.

Adjusting Your Plans – Like With This Bald Cypress

by | Aug 18, 2020 | Bald Cypress, Care, Most Recent, Pruning, Styling, Wiring

adjusting your plans – like with this bald cypress

the bonsai files

Sneak Peek

When we collect trees we usually have some specific expectations. Sometimes the tree decide to go a different direction. What to do? Adjust your plan.

Adjusting Your Plans – Like With This Bald Cypress

 

Collecting trees, once you’ve done enough of it, usually provides a more or less instantaneous idea of what the eventual bonsai will look like. You spot the specimen with potential, you size it up, then you lift it. All that has to happen next is for the tree to live, thrive and then withstand a lot of chopping, pruning and wiring (sometimes quite a bit of it!).

But it doesn’t always go so well. Take this Bald cypress as an example. Nice smaller specimen, trunk base 3″ and chopped at 24″ which is pretty standard. Nice movement and great taper. It could make a fine pyramidal style bonsai, or even a flat-top. Lots of potential. Only it didn’t bud out like it was supposed to. This happens sometimes, and when it does I just set the tree in the back of the nursery and leave it alone. Quite often, it’ll eventually bud near the base and then I keep watch on it to see if it’s a head-fake or the tree decided to try and make something of itself.

 

This one turned out to be a “half-back.” Half of it came back. Not only that, but you can see by the length of that top-most shoot that there’s actually some decent strength in the tree. So that means I can throw out Plan A and move right on to Plan B.

That leader has to be as upright as possible, at least to my way of thinking, so I wired and positioned it. The next step is to just leave it alone for the rest of 2020 and well into 2021. But after that, what? I could consider a trunk-chop right near the leader, and regrow everything above the chop. There’s nothing at all wrong with this, it’s done all the time. And you’d get a nice tree out of the deal. But there are other options.

Here’s the one I’ve settled on. I’ve seen BC’s like this in the swamp. Something happens to them at some advanced point in their life – maybe a lightning strike or old age, there are different possibilities. In this case I’m thinking that the tree broke in half, then struggled to regrow while the heartwood was eaten away. Regardless, I now have a good Plan B to work on and I’ll end up with a BC bonsai that’s a little different.

For those of you who have read up on Bald cypress, the heartwood of BC is virtually indestructable. At the same time, I have literally stood inside ancient specimens that are completely hollowed out, no heartwood at all, just a cylinder of sapwood supporting the entire structure of the tree (healthy structure, I might add, despite initial impressions). I’m not sure what causes this to happen to certain specimens, but it’s pretty fascinating.

Anyway, this is where I’m going with this cypress. Do you think it’s a good plan?

Design Principles: Is It A Tree Or An Abstract Tree?

by | Aug 15, 2020 | Care, Most Recent, Potting, Privet, Pruning, Styling, Wiring

design principles: is it a tree or an abstract tree?

the bonsai files

Sneak Peek

A bonsai is literally a tree in a tray. But as I’m sure we can all agree, it’s far more than that. But what exactly is it? A tree or an abstract tree? The best way to answer this question may be by considering the shohin bonsai.

Design Principles: Is it a Tree or an Abstract Tree?

So here’s another one of my pasture privets that I dug in June. Very cool lower trunk damage (character!), nice taper and movement, all in a small package – the trunk was chopped at about 6″. There’s plenty of growth and plenty of roots to style and pot this tree, so that’s the goal for today with this one.

But let’s talk about design principles and what bonsai is all about. Bonsai is the art and craft of designing, potting and maintaining miniature trees. That’s pretty straightforward as it goes. But what exactly is it we’re creating? Is it a tree or something else?

I ask the question because the objective fact is that no bonsai is an exact representation of a tree in nature on a small scale. Why? Take an 80 foot-tall tree with a two-foot trunk diameter near the ground. For a bonsai with a 2″ trunk base, you’re talking an 80″ tall bonsai. Well, we know that isn’t the way bonsai works. So we’re compressing the proportions into a manageable scale and tricking the brain into believing something that isn’t objectively so.

The next thing to consider is how many branches a bonsai has. This varies, of course, but suffice it to say that almost always a bonsai has far fewer branches than a tree in nature. But this is necessary due to the limited scale in which we have to operate.

Nowhere is this more exaggerated than in the shohin bonsai. Which brings us to today’s subjects. Count the branches on this very small tree. What are there, maybe eight? And we’re going to make a whole tree out of that?

 

Yes, that’s exactly it. I even started by removing two branches, one that was an extra down near that right-hand branch, and one that was jutting out toward us. Neither was of any use in the ultimate design. But look, I’ve actually created two branches for this bonsai to be that make the impression I want to make.

Right branch, left branch, back branch. Now I’ve introduced visual depth into this tree structure I’m making. You always need this in your bonsai, in order to trick the brain into seeing a three-dimensional tree in a very small space. We create perspective by foreshortening from front to back and using taper from base to apex to make the tree look a lot taller than it is.

Now the basic design is finished. There are five branches (there’s one in the back below the two upper branches that’s a bit hard to see), plus the leader. That’s all. Yet it’s not at all hard to see a tree in this very small package. It’s an abstract tree, for sure, but it can produce exactly the effect I want.

With the bonsai pot, of course. The function of the bonsai pot is to complete the abstract impression of size and viewing distance in our tree. Viewing distance is achieved by the shallow pot that is reminiscent of a slice of ground (this effect just does not happen in a deep nursery container – put one beside a potted bonsai and you’ll see the difference immediately). Note: the cascade pot is designed to represent a slice of mountainside, producing the same effect of viewing distance.

This tree will fill out over the next couple of months, and by that time we’ll be heading into fall. Privets retain a good bit of their foliage through winter down here in the South, but are deciduous in the North.

Okay, maybe you were thinking that the tree above was, in the end, a pretty easy subject. I had enough branches in the right spots to make a whole tree structure. I can’t argue that. But take a look at this one. How in the world do you make a whole tree out of just a few branches?

Here’s how I did it. I’m going to make use of that low branch, which actually emerges pretty far down on the trunk; when it’s filled out I’ll have a good bit of foliage all the way from the lower third of the tree into the crown – both front and back. That next branch up the tree gives me visual balance on the right-hand side, and I can finish off the crown in just a few branches. Abstract tree!

Do you grow shohin bonsai? I’d love to hear what you think of these two specimens.

Water-Elm Progression

by | Aug 7, 2020 | Care, Elms, Most Recent, Pruning, Styling, Water Elm, Wiring, ZPC

water-elm progression

the bonsai files

Sneak Peek

I’ve been keeping you updated on the progression of one of the Water-elms in my personal collection. This tree has done so well, it’s just about show-ready.

Water-Elm Progression

Beginning at the beginning is always best when you’re showing a progression. Here’s one of my personal Water-elms on the day it was collected, 8-4-18. This trunk is just outstanding, and I knew it was destined to make for a great bonsai.

This specimen came with more branching than I’m used to. I never object to having some structure to work with; it usually speeds up the whole development process.

 

 

Fast-forward to the next June, the tree has grown out enough to have been through a couple of rounds of wiring and has even made it into its first bonsai pot.

I’ve written about the development technique of shearing before. I blogged earlier in the season about this technique, as applied to this tree. The reason it’s worth mentioning now is I just conducted a Zoom consultation with a Water-elm client to demonstrate the technique, using this same tree again.

This was the result of shearing the tree back in May. It’s worth bearing in mind that shearing is not a refinement technique per se, though it does set up your tree for refinement as it helps build the tree’s superstructure. Shearing prompts the tree to backbud and produce ramification – not necessarily the ramification you’re seeking as the tree enters its maturing stage; rather, this period of ramification is what provides the finer design of each branch. It’s this design of each branch, repeated throughout the tree, that ultimately makes the whole thing realistic looking.

Once I was finished with this shearing, I set the tree back on the bench and just left it alone. It’s always tempting to pinch off some growth you think you won’t need as you pass by your trees on the daily rounds, but the technique works best if you just keep on walking. I would eventually get shoots a foot or more long for my current round of shearing.

This is the after shot of the tree following shearing and then some more detailed pruning.

I think it’s very instructive to spend some time studying this photo in comparison with the one just above. Notice that I do indeed have more ramfication in this iteration than in the previous one. But this tree is by no means fully styled; I’ve only set it up for that next stage by building a superstructure that will support all of the twiggy growth to come.

I took the opportunity during this round of pruning to remove crossing branches, downward pointing branches and those that just had no future either horticulturally or aesthetically. I especially wanted to clear out the interior of the tree, where no foliage is found in nature. All too often I see deciduous bonsai grown like bushes in pots – you can’t see 90% of the trunk and branching (and the excuse that you get to see all of it in winter is not acceptable). This tree shows and always will show the lowest half of the trunk, and when it fills out I’ll be sure you can see some of the interior structure higher up. There will be “space for the birds to fly through,” as John Naka used to say.

You’ll also notice that I employed some wire for the purpose of bringing two of the lower branches into a more horizontal position. This is a key step in the design process. You lowest branches will tend to be horizontal, the next layer above will tend to move somewhat upward, and by the time you reach the crown of the tree they’re really reaching for the sun. I think this tree gives a fine example of this design principle.

Let me know what you think of this Water-elm bonsai. It’s one of my all-time favorites.

Pasture Privet Progress

by | Jul 29, 2020 | Care, Most Recent, Privet, Pruning, Styling, Wiring

pasture privet progress

the bonsai files

Sneak Peek

I got over 90% success with the pasture privets I collected last month (actually they all lived; a couple probably won’t be usable). They’ve grown out very well, and today I tackled what I consider the best specimen among them.

Pasture Privet Progress

Making great bonsai is all about starting with the best material you can find or buy, then making good decisions as you style, pot, refine, and maintain your tree. This is one of the “pasture privets” I collected last month, almost two months ago now. This photo of the bare tree shows you the beginning of the decisionmaking process (in an easier to see way – the photo below explains why).

 

This is good strong growth, just what we’d expect from a Chinese privet. Trees that put on a lot of growth in a hurry are always good to work with – you make progress much faster.

Some decisions are very easy. You always eliminate branches that have absolutely no future. Like the one the arrow’s pointing toward in this shot.

In this shot I’ve already removed some superfluous shoots, those with either no future or that are redundant. Time for the first important decision – which trunk stays, and which goes?

This was an easy one. I’ve got trunk movement and taper on the smaller trunk. It’s just what you’re always looking for in your trees, whether they’re single-trunk or multiple.

And now the trunk is pointed into the leader, with an angle cut behind it.

Things seem to get a bit trickier on the main trunk, but if you look closely you’ll realize that it’s going to be very hard to make that fork moving off to the side look right. It’s lacking taper all along its length. So the solution is pretty easy, in the end.

The angle of the photo makes this trunk look less tapering than it really is. It’s also not totally pole-straight, which would be less than desirable.

With the trunk lines established and the excess foliage gone, it’s time to wire out this tree and see what we end up with.

Not too shabby, eh? I knew I really liked this specimen when I first spotted it. It’s got so much going for it, it’s just a matter of working the plan. The tough decisions are already behind me.

Look what I discovered – a better front! This view of the tree is so much better than the one above, and I didn’t notice it until today. I love it when things work out!

Let me know what you think of this Pasture Privet.