by Zach Smith | Dec 11, 2016 | American Elm, Care, Collecting, Elms, Hackberry, Sweetgum
I’ve written often about developing bonsai from the ground up. Today, following our first couple of freezing nights for the year, we warmed up enough to make working outdoors pleasant. Here are a few bonsai-to-be that I’ve been growing in the ground for a while. Today it was time to do the next round of chopping.
Here’s an American elm, Ulmus Americana, that I’ve been growing for a few years from a volunteer. American elm grows quickly in the ground if left alone to grow. From a seedling it grew strongly in the typical upright fashion. Last year I chopped it back hard – you can see the chop point in this photo – and then selected the strongest leader and put some wire on it in order to create just a little movement in the trunk. Then I just left it alone; I did remove the wire once it started to bite.
Here’s the tree from another angle, after I cut off the other leaders that had emerged from the chop point. I could have left multiple leaders on this tree and grown it in the classic “vase-shape” style of the American elm in nature. But instead I opted for a more typical informal upright style.
Now, as you can tell this new leader loses it taper pretty quickly once it leaves the original chop point. This is all right – I needed the leader to thicken sufficiently to produce a nice tapering transition. But if I don’t chop the tree again now, I’ll lose that transition.
I left the leader extra-long here, but it is cut back enough to prevent loss of taper. Next spring I’m going to get buds all up and down the leader, at which point I’ll select one and cut the excess off. For now I’ve done all the needs doing.
The trunk base is 1.5″ and the new chop is at 8″ from the soil. When I cut back again next year the new chop point is going to be around 4″ from the soil.
I’ve shown you this Sweetgum, Liquidambar styraciflua, before. This past year I chopped back the main trunk line to about 12″ from the soil, and allowed a low branch to take off in order to thicken the base. Boy, did that work! I got a base of 3″ by doing this, and the new leader literally took over the tree growing about 8′ tall. We’ve reached a point, however, where I had to put a stop to this. By allowing the new leader to continue growing, the main trunk line would begin to weaken and could possibly die. So today I felt it was a good time to eliminate the sacrifice trunk.
A closeup of the trunk base, from the other side.
This is a very important photo. If you’ll look at the point where the trunk changes color from gray to green, you’ll notice just below that point there’s a circular bit of wood that forms a ring below the green part (which is the new strong trunk I need to get rid of). This is the equivalent of a branch collar. For those of you familiar with arborist work, when large branches are removed from trees they’re always cut just beyond the branch collar. Why? Simply to preserve the sap flow from the roots up past the branch. If you remove the lower part of the branch collar, you run the risk of killing off part of the trunk below the collar. In the case of this Sweetgum, I could kill all of the roots below this leader. So I’ll be careful to avoid this when I chop.
And here we are, in just a few minutes. Now I’ve got a great tapering trunk line on my Sweetgum. The original chop on this specimen was at 12″, so with a 3″ trunk base I can finish out this specimen at 18″ and have a perfect base to height ratio.
I don’t plan to lift this specimen until next May. I’ll post a follow-up at that time.
I collected this Hackberry, Celtis laevigata, in 2012. To be honest it was pretty ugly, more so when I got it home. But there’s always hope. So I planted it out a few years ago and just let it get established and start to take off. It’s been a few years, but I finally got strong growth in a leader and I’m beginning to think there may be something to this specimen after all – in a few more years.
A shot from the other side. Doesn’t look like much, does it?
Just a quick chop later, I think 2017 may see this specimen begin to look like wanting to be a bonsai some day. It’s going to take several more years, but that’s just part of the fun. Patient work. Grow and chop. Grow and chop.
And finally, the tree from another angle.
This specimen has a 2.5″ trunk base and has now been chopped to 8″ above the soil surface. In the spring the leader is going to push a number of buds, which will allow me to choose the next leader for growing out.
by Zach Smith | Dec 10, 2016 | Care, Flowering, Hawthorn, Sweetgum
Fall in the Deep South is an iffy affair. When we do get fall, it typically comes and goes in short order. This year we actually got perfect conditions for a nice season of color, a lengthy drought that ended around Thanksgiving. In the past couple of weeks we’ve seen our trees in the landscape produce nice yellows, reds and purples. Then the rains came, and those colorful leaves have been falling quickly. The gray, somber winter is just about upon us.
For the bonsai artist who loves deciduous trees, winter is actually a good time of year. The well-ramified trees get to show off their development. Those trees still in development get to show off where they are in the process, plus what they still lack. All in all, I love deciduous bonsai in winter. Here are a couple of nice examples.
This is my Riverflat hawthorn, Crataegus opaca, that I’ve been working on for five years now. You can see the state of ramification this tree has achieved. The final step in developing this bonsai is going to occur in the crown, which has come along very well over the past couple of years. I’m confident that by the end of the 2017 growing season, this tree will be “finished.”
This Sweetgum forest, Liquidambar styraciflua, was put together in 2015. In just two growing seasons, it’s reached a pretty nice stage of development. With the leaves just about off all of the trees, it’s much easier to see the state of development of the individual trees. This is important to any forest composition. While it might seem easiest to grow a forest as simply a mass of foliage, this will never fly with deciduous species. Winter will always rat you out. So today I was able to get “inside” the forest and do some strategic pruning. Each of the trees in this forest has its own structure, which I’m developing over time. It’s only going to take one more growing season to get this forest to the point where constant pinching will finish the development.
I’d love to hear of any experiences you might want to share with regard to your deciduous bonsai in winter. Just leave a comment below.
by Zach Smith | Nov 6, 2016 | Bald Cypress, Crape myrtle, Sweetgum
The weekend’s almost over. I spent a good bit of time yesterday and today cleaning benches and reorganizing my trees. We seldom get fall color around here, which I guess is the price you pay for not having excessively cold weather each winter (*brrr*), but here’s one exception:
This is Allen Gautreau’s Crape myrtle, and it’s put on some yellow and red this past week. A lot of the leaves are already off the tree, so it won’t be much longer until it’s bare. But it’s still nice to see the change.
As I mentioned in an earlier post on this one, it needs a semi-hard pruning next year and to be repotted. It’s a great old bonsai.
Here’s one of my lemonade Bald cypresses from a couple of weeks ago. I had stripped off the dead bark as part of making something out of it. Yesterday and today I gave it a couple of coats of lime sulfur, in order to bleach and help preserve the wood. It’s turned a nice white color now, which will fade a bit over time. This is more or less what the color looks like in the wild once the main part of the bole has died.
I’m frequently asked about leaf size reduction on Sweetgums. In the wild, their leaves are usually about 5″ long, and because they are attached to the branches by petioles these too are about 5″ long. This makes for a real challenge in creating proportionality. The good news is, however, once you have your Sweetgum branch structure established and are working into tertiary ramification and beyond, the leaves get nice and small. It also helps to let the tree get a little pot-bound.
The tree pictured here has a 1.25″ trunk base and is about 13″ tall. The largest leaves on the tree (many have fallen since, of course, it’s fall) are just over 1″ long, with most not more than 1″. And petiole size reduces in step with leaf size reduction. This is another good reason for growing native Sweetgum as bonsai.
I hope you’ve had and enjoyable Sunday with your bonsai.
by Zach Smith | Oct 8, 2016 | Care, Collecting, Styling, Sweetgum, Wiring
Even after 25+ years of collecting trees for bonsai, I still do crazy/risky things. I mean, this is all for fun, right? Here’s one of my latest examples.
I usually collect Sweetgums (Liquidambar styraciflua) in May and June. Winter collecting has resulted in poor survival rates for me, as low as 20-30%. So having learned that lesson the hard way, I wait till May and wrap it all up by June.
In the case of this tree, I got a wild hair in August and sawed it out of the ground. The trunk base is 1.5″ in diameter, and it’s 12″ to the chop. I really like the trunk character.
The tree is pictured from what I figured would be the front. It seemed to show off the best features of the trunk. This is always important when you’re creating a bonsai. The trunk of a bonsai is the foundation of it. The size, the shape, the movement, the character, all of these things play a role. Without them, it’s very hard to make something that looks right. So it’s only natural that I would be careful when deciding on the front of the tree.
Here’s a photo of the tree from September. It obviously survived my craziness (I don’t necessarily recommend this; I’m just reporting on what I did).
Fast-forward to today. All of those shoots just starting to push back in September are elongating. That’s a good sign. So today it was time for another wild hair – can I make something out of this unusual piece of material? You see, my original idea for this tree was of a fairly standard informal upright or even slanting style tree with the requisite branch structure: first branch (on the left), second back, back branch, and so on up the tree finishing in the crown. Nothing at all wrong with that, either. But considering where all the new growth appeared, is there something more to this specimen than what I saw in the beginning?
This is where photos and a little study can help you to not miss better options with your trees. Here’s what I mean.
First I turned the tree to have a look at the back. Anything here? Well, not really. But you do have to look.
How about from this angle? Now I think I’m seeing something better – something a little out of the ordinary. So I figured I’d wire the shoots and the leader to see if I was right.
Here’s the result, and now by turning the tree just a bit I see the design of this one. I envision a shallow oval, fairly long to give the impression of a landscape scene. That should make for a dramatic presentation.
What do you think? Do you like where I went with this one? And have you ever used photography to help you design your trees? Leave me a comment below.
by Zach Smith | Aug 14, 2016 | Bald Cypress, Care, Collecting, Hornbeam, Potting, Styling, Sweetgum
These two bald cypresses came out of the swamp together, having grown for some time as natural companions. I could see a two tree flat-top pairing right off the bat. Knowing I could create the entire crown of each tree in a bonsai pot, I went ahead and put the pair in this Byron Myrick oval. Then I waited.
It took a couple of months, but I finally got enough growth going to start wiring the new leaders. Not much to look at, are they? (Actually, they grew like crazy bushes; I took off over 90% of the growth before doing this wiring.)
A couple months later, we’ve got some good growth going. Time for a trim and more wiring.
They’re back to not looking like much, but if you strain you can see the crown taking shape on the larger specimen. I’d predict that by the end of next growing season, I’ll have a really nice flat-top structure in place. I’ll keep you posted.
Here’s a sweetgum bonsai that I just made today. It too doesn’t look like much, but that’s because I cut off all the large leaves in order to promote a new crop of smaller leaves. I’ll diligently pinch the growing tips, which is the secret to training sweetgums during the growing season. I should have a nice bit of foliage on the tree by next month.
This is a small specimen, with a trunk base of 3/4″ and a height of 14″. What I like about it is, it’s a good example of the natural growth habit of sweetgum, which is columnar. By keeping the branches short, I can emphasize this great feature of the species.
The pot is a beautiful oval by Chuck Iker. In case I get fall color this year, the pot color will complement it very nicely.
Finally, I wired up this Eastern hophornbeam, Ostrya virginiana, which I had direct-potted this past winter when I collected it. I cut off the leaves the other day, to promote a final flush of growth this season.
Hophornbeam is one of the relatively few species of trees that holds its leaves through winter – American beech and Southern sugar maple being two others in my neck of the woods. They also feature a nice rough bark, versus American hornbeam with its smooth bark. They’re difficult to collect, as they don’t like to have their roots disturbed.
This specimen has a 1″ trunk base and is 11.5″ tall. Another great Chuck Iker pot.
by Zach Smith | Jul 30, 2016 | Care, Collecting, Oaks, Pruning, Sweetgum, Wiring
When I tell fellow bonsai enthusiasts that I’ve had good success collecting oaks in summer, they’re always surprised. And why not? We know that most species prefer to be collected during dormancy, meaning winter. I’ve written before about my own discovery in regard to collecting Sweetgums, namely, that they seem to prefer being lifted in May. But oaks? Who would think of collecting them in summer?
I like to experiment from time to time, testing what’s common knowledge as it were. I first tried my hand at collecting oaks last summer, and found that I had great success all the way into August. So I lifted this Water oak, Quercus nigra, today.
This is a very nice piece of material. The trunk base is 1.5″ and it’s 8.5″ to the chop. Nice taper, and I love the rough, dark bark near the base. I should know in a couple of weeks if it’s going to make it.
Okay, that’s a Water oak and I know already I can collect them in summer, along with Willow oak, Quercus phellos. No new knowledge there. But here’s the real experiment of the day. Can Live oak, Quercus Virginiana, be collected in summer? Now that would be something.
In October 2010 I gathered about 50 Live oak acorns. I planted them in a big tub, then ignored them except for watering and feeding as they sprouted and developed into seedlings. Two years ago I planted the roughly 25 that remained in my field growing bed, along with a handful of larger seedlings I’d acquired in a bonsai club auction. This is one of those larger seedlings, now grown to a trunk diameter of 1.5″. I like the gentle curve of the trunk, and I’m thinking it’ll make a decent broom-form bonsai in a few years. It’s got a good start already.
I went ahead and wired out the branches (positive thinking, eh?). I’ll need to chase them back to get the proportions right, but that’s for another time. For now, we’ll see if Live oaks can be lifted at this time of year. The truth is, I have no idea, but I’d sure like to know.
Have you ever worked with Live oak? My own experience is somewhat limited. I’d love to hear anything you’re willing to share.
