by Zach Smith | Nov 5, 2016 | Care, Elms, Ficus, Water Elm
What does fall mean to you? Leaves turning, growth ended, prelude to winter? That’s all true, but for most of us (perhaps more of us in the South) some of our trees may still be pushing growth. This is particularly true if you’ve done any recent root work on them. Trees respond in a reliable fashion to having their roots disturbed at any time of year – they grow new roots, and if also pruned in the top grow new shoots. Here are a couple of examples from my own benches:
I wrote about this Water-elm, Planera aquatica, on September 29th. I had lifted it from my growing bed just to have some fun. It had a nice base and a perfect trunk form to produce a great broom-form bonsai. Do I normally lift trees in September? No, but my scientist background makes me want to experiment with trees so you never know what I may do. Up came this one, it got its root-pruning and went straight into this Chuck Iker pot.
I knew at the time that this tree would respond to having its roots and crown cut back hard by producing new growth. It took a few weeks, but lovely new buds began to form on the trunk and before you knew it I had some shoots that were several inches long. Today I wired a couple of them so I could start the shaping process. It sure doesn’t look like much right now, but I can assure you that next year I’ll be able to create the entire structure of this neat little bonsai.
But here’s the critical question: is there harm in doing things to your trees at this time of year that force it to produce growth usually reserved for spring? In my experience, the answer is no. Trees “want” to live, just as you and I do, so doing the hard pruning in summer or even early fall doesn’t really change that. Since deciduous trees store food in their cells over winter, and since sap stops flowing over winter, the only thing the tree needs to do after a late-season pruning is to produce some new roots and whatever top growth it can.
But what if a freeze comes along? I’ve seen this happen too. Because of where I live, some species will continue putting on growth well into November. We get our first freeze down here in December, typically. When it comes, any tender growth that can’t hold up to the cold simply gets burned back and that tends to finish off the growth for the season. Then the tree comes back out in spring. I’ve never seen a case where a tree, which didn’t have a fundamental health issue to start with, failed to come back out the next spring.
Here’s another tree that I pushed the envelope on, a Cedar elm, Ulmus crassifolia. It was lifted from my growing bed on October 15th. You can see in this photo that in only three weeks the tree has pushed a lot of new growth. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have a lot of new root growth as well. So the tree wanted to live and responded accordingly. It will continue to grow for the next few weeks or more. The new growth will harden off to an extent. Then winter will be upon us. And I have every reason to believe that the tree will not skip a beat in spring – in fact, lifting it this fall will give me a head-start on developing it for sale in 2017.
Here’s a closeup of some of the new growth, by the way. Reminiscent of spring, isn’t it?
Do you have any experience lifting trees in fall? I’d love to hear any feedback you might wish to share.
by Zach Smith | Oct 21, 2016 | Care, Elms, Pruning, Styling, Water Elm
I’ve written about this Water-elm bonsai (Planera aquatica) a few times now. Ever since I collected it in 2012, I’ve been working toward a broom-form bonsai. And you can see that this year it’s reached a nice stage of ramification. I could continue pinching and pruning this tree, which would improve the ramification even more. But that would not be the best expression of this tree. If you look “inside” it, you’ll see some issues with the branching. Moreover, these issues can’t be resolved by any quick-fix. No, in order to build this bonsai the right way I’m going to have to apply some tough love – meaning tough cuts.
I’m not sure there’s anything harder for an inexperienced bonsai artist to do than this. I have literally cut away about three years’ worth of development. But at the same time, I’ve corrected some issues that are only going to get worse in the tree in the first photo. For one thing, the silhouette of the tree had already reached its finishing point. There was no further it could go without ruining the proportions of the tree. Another problem with the tree is that most of the primary and secondary branches had just grown too long. Again, the only place for the tree to grow going forward was out. Not okay.
So with today’s tough love, this tree is going to begin its next building phase in 2017. This will go very quickly, because I’ve got a large root mass with not so much demand to begin the growing season. I can grow this tree out and prune it back fairly hard about three times next year. By season’s end, the silhouette will be pretty much where it was before I massacred it. Now, another (not so hard) pruning will happen next fall, to build the next phase in 2018. But one step at a time.
I’d love to know what you think of the work I did today. Leave a comment below.
by Zach Smith | Oct 14, 2016 | Care, Elms, Potting, Styling, Tools, Water Elm
Many of you have followed the saga of my “Root around cypress knee” Water-elm. You may recall that earlier this year I reported that the knees were rotting away – an unavoidable situation. I went ahead and removed the last section a few months ago, adding in soil to fill the space. Then I left the tree alone.
2016 marks the fourth year of training for this bonsai. Water-elms are fast to train, easily reaching showable condition in three years. In the case of this broom-form specimen, year four has brought increased ramification and maturing of the branch structure. Here’s a shot of the tree, taken today.
This specimen tends to experience fall early, so a lot of the leaves are already off the tree. That provides a good opportunity to see “inside” the tree, which is essential when you’re ready to begin refining your bonsai.
In the case of broom-form bonsai that are created from trunk-chopped specimens, there comes a point where you have to make those transitions look right. To illustrate what I mean, take a look at this tree a couple of months after I collected it:
I always make a straight cut when trunk-chopping. This helps the tree produce buds where I want them – an angled cut sounds good, but you don’t always get a bud at the top of the angle-cut – which forces you to chop a second time.
Here’s one of those chops today. You can see that I carved it down in the past. That was the correct step at that particular time. Now I’m at the stage where I need to carve this down smooth, and I need to take steps to preserve the wood.
Here’s the other original leader; you can see the rough cut marks from my knob cutter. This also needs carving.
After carving the main leader. I used a cordless Dremel Multi-Pro® to do the work. Notice that the carved area is designed to shed water. This is very important. You don’t want any of the larger cuts on your bonsai to hold water, as this will promote rot.
Here are two other spots I carved, the secondary leader and a spot on the main leader where I had removed a larger branch. These cuts have been treated with PC Petrifier®, to seal them and prevent rot.
Next spring I’ll cut this tree back fairly hard, in order to begin creating the next level of ramification. By cutting back hard, I’ll be able to prevent the tree from growing out of scale. This is a common error made by many artists, namely, letting the tree grow out of its proportions. One cause of this is the natural reticence to do the hard pruning necessary as you’re building out the tree. Once you’ve done it a few times, however, it gets easier – and your trees are much better off for it.
Here are the tree’s stats, by the way: trunk diameter 2.5″ above the root crown; root spread 9″ from the front view; height 21″ from the soil; spread 16″. I’d estimate the age of the tree to be about 75 years. The pot is a custom rectangle by Bryon Myrick.
I plan to offer this tree for sale next year, after I’ve completed the first round of training in spring. If you’re interested send me an email and I’ll give you the details.
by Zach Smith | Oct 1, 2016 | Care, Chinese Elm, Elms, Potting, Styling, Water Elm, Wiring
The days are getting shorter, and many if not most of you have already had some cool nights. Your bonsai have also begun to slow their growth. Now, this doesn’t mean they aren’t growing at all, it just means the dynamic growth of spring and early summer has given way to a different set of priorities for your trees. With fall comes a single imperative for temperate zone trees, namely, surviving the coming winter. To be sure, reproduction is near completion for many species – Chinese elms among them. Mine in the landscape are covered in seeds. But beyond this, the trees are working hard on storing food to get them through winter. As a bonsai artist, you may have noticed this phenomenon by way of wire that has suddenly bitten into branches you wired weeks ago. They sat undisturbed for all that time, all was well, then one day you walk out and are surprised to see the wire is binding. This fall swelling is due to food storage activities, and is perfectly normal. It also can be aggravating, but that’s part of the fun of bonsai.
Once you get all the wire off your trees needing it, you don’t want to miss an opportunity to do some pruning and even rewiring if you so choose. The leaves will be falling from your deciduous trees within about eight weeks. Once they’re gone, nothing is going to happen again until spring. There’s certainly nothing wrong with waiting till then to wire your trees again – but don’t forget that spring brings with it chores that must be done at that time. For those of you whose collections are rather large, repotting alone will occupy a great deal of your time once the buds start swelling. I do my share of pruning and wiring at repotting time, but trees that have already been wired the previous fall can go right to the repotting process. It can make a big difference.
This water-elm was a perfect candidate for some fall pruning. The tree is only in its second year of training, but the basic branch structure is done. Next year the tree will move into the ramification stage, where I devote most of my effort to building foliage pads on each of the branches. It’ll start looking more “organized.”
Today’s work consisted of three significant activities:
- I pruned out unneeded branchlets and shoots
- I carved two uros, one of them at the chop transition point in the apex, and treated with wood hardener; and
- I wired and positioned the number one left branch, which is a year younger than the other primary branches on the tree
I won’t touch this specimen again until next spring, at which time I’ll likely do a little more refined pruning and wiring.
Here’s another activity you can do in the fall, depending on the species and your skill level. I’ve been reporting on this Chinese elm during 2016 as I developed it into a nice pre-bonsai specimen. Today I decided the tree was ready for a bonsai pot, so I grabbed this Chuck Iker round off the shelf and cut off enough roots to fit the tree into it.
Is fall really an okay time to be potting trees? Again, it depends on the species and your skill level. I know that root growth is fairly vigorous in the fall, so this tree should recover fine over the next 6-8 weeks – in time for actual cold weather here. There won’t be any significant foliar growth for the rest of 2016, but that’s all right. Come spring of next year, this tree will be ready to explode with new growth, at which time I’ll be able to complete the design. If I wait till spring to pot the tree, the growth will be delayed by a few weeks and I’ll lose a round of growth. This way I get a leg up.
by Zach Smith | Sep 29, 2016 | Care, Flowering, Loropetalum, Potting, Styling, Water Elm
The weekend is almost upon us, and that means more bonsai action is on the way. I got a little restless this evening, so I decided to photograph a few bonsai-to-be and post them just for fun.
I’m probably the only person on the planet who propagates water-elm, Planera aquatica. I’ve always been fascinated by the species. Though it’s kin to the elms, it’s not quite an elm due apparently to the seed which is a prickly nut rather than a winged seed. I’ve got thousands of winged seeds on my landscape Chinese elms right now, but I’ve never seen a water-elm nut. I hope to someday.
This specimen was grown from a cutting, which was then grown in a pot for a while, which was then put in the ground for a couple of years. The trunk’s reached 1″ in diameter, so I thought it would be a good time to lift it and see what I could make out of it. This Chuck Iker round was a good start. I work on a lot of big water-elms, so this one should be a nice change of pace. I plan on making it into a broom-form bonsai. New buds are just starting to show, so that means I ought to have a nice final flush of growth for the end of this growing season.
This Chinese elm, Ulmus parvifolia, is taking a more traditional path. Also grown from a cutting, it spent a good few years in a pot getting tall and lanky. I cut it back hard this year and am presently building a shohin informal upright out of it. Next spring it gets a bonsai pot, a lot of crown development and a more rounded crown.
I’m about to introduce a new species to the Bonsai South family, Loropetalum chinense or Chinese fringe flower. Loropetalum, as it’s most commonly known, is a broadleaf evergreen with great dusky scarlet foliage which is naturally small. The species backbuds extremely well and twigs up easily. Look for some specimens for sale in three or four weeks. I potted this one a couple of weeks ago, and it’s throwing new buds. Great tree structure, eh?
by Zach Smith | Sep 24, 2016 | Care, Water Elm
I’m happy to report that the heat index today was only 100°. The other day they said fall has arrived. I’m thinking somebody’s wrong about this.
Nevertheless, it is water-elm collecting season and here are a few specimens that came home today:
I really love the twin-trunk specimens I find from time to time, and this one is no exception. The trunk base is 2″ and it’s 14″ to the chop. The radial roots are terrific. The bark is ready to exfoliate either this fall or next spring. I’m guessing it’s about 50-60 years old.
This one has an interesting trunk, especially considering that a beaver gnawed off the top. This part of the trunk can be taken off to make the tapering transition look better – or it can be left as a feature. Good roots also. Trunk base is 1.5″ and it’s 10″ to the chop. Age about 30 years.
Here’s a stout little specimen, with a trunk base of 2″ and chopped at 11″. Nice trunk movement and taper. The roots will need some work, but the trunk character made this one worth bringing home. Age about 45-50 years.
Occasionally I’ll run across a water-elm that screams literati. This one made that noise as we walked by, so home it came. The base is 1.75″ and it’s 23″ to the chop. I went ahead and put it into this Paul Katich pot, which I think complements the tree very well. The age of the specimen is about 45-50 years.
I’ll know in a couple of weeks if these trees survived collecting. The last group had a 90% survival rate, so I’ve got high hopes.
Water-elm, Planera aquatica, is a great species to work with. If you’re an elm bonsai aficionado, you should have a water-elm in your collection. It’s a monotypic species, meaning it’s the only one of its kind. Pretty neat feature.
