by Zach Smith | Aug 26, 2015 | Care, Water Elm
In Part 1 of this article we took a look at the principle of non-static (asymmetric) stability, the overall shape of a bonsai and how it conforms to a visually pleasing silhouette represented by a scalene cone. In Part 2, we explored how the bonsai artist uses perspective to create the impression of a hundred foot-tall tree in only a couple of feet, by creating trees with trunks that taper from base to apex as well as foliage masses that likewise taper. In this post, we’re going to explore the third design principle used by the artist to make a bonsai look like a mature tree in nature: how to make your tree look older than it is.
Although we occasionally get to work with material that’s actually very old, there’s no such thing as a bonsai that’s too old(!) – so we always seek the appearance of more age in our trees. This can actually be accomplished in material that’s quite young. It just takes knowledge of how to apply a few key techniques.
First of all, we need to ask ourselves what it is about old trees that make them look old. It isn’t hard to list a few things: bark; surface rootage; thick trunk; height. These are things we either want our bonsai to actually exhibit or, in the case of trunk thickness and height, appear to exhibit as our brain sees it. Because the art of bonsai is essentially the art of illusion (albeit with a real live tree), we have to learn and practice design techniques that create or enhance the illusion we seek.
Your young bonsai may not have bark, so if this is the case you’ll need to focus on the other ways of producing the impression of age. Fortunately, we always have the ability to control the relationship between trunk thickness and branch spread. This is one of the easiest ways to make a tree look older than it is. It’s also one of the most overlooked techniques.
Here’s an example of how this technique works. This is a relatively young American hornbeam, which was much taller when first collected. The trunk base is only 1.5″ in diameter, and when collected it looked exactly like what it was, a young American hornbeam. In order to make this tree look older (and larger) than what it actually is, the first thing I had to do was chop it down which may sound a bit ironic. But this is where perspective and proportion come in.
Now compare this photo to the first one. See how I’ve brought the silhouette of the tree inward. Now the trunk base looks thicker than it really is. And the tree itself looks older than in the first shot. I’ve taken advantage of another design principle used all the time in bonsai: using proportion to create the illusion of size and, at the same time, age in a tree. This specimen is probably no more than 15 years old. But it’s well on its way to looking like it’s 50 years old or more. Had I left the branches overlong, this illusion would be shattered.
Another way to make your trees look older can only be accomplished with time – though fortunately not an excessive amount of time – and by this I’m referring to ramification. Ramification is the process whereby you force the tree to produce more plentiful but smaller leaves. Physiologically, a tree (of any size) doesn’t care how many leaves it has, it only cares how much total leaf surface area it has. Leaves produce food; food is survival. So the tree will gladly sport one giant leaf or a million tiny ones. When we grow bonsai, we’re deliberately restricting the amount of soil our trees grow in. With restricted room, the tree shifts its metabolic output to maximize its odds of survival and growth. Thus the leaves get smaller and more plentiful.
Here’s one of my favorite water-elms I’ve enjoyed growing, unfortunately a victim of Winter 2014. If you study the tree you’ll see that in just a few years I managed to achieve a good degree of ramification – plentiful, small leaves. It took time and effort to get the tree to this point, because branch development had to take priority. But in just about four years, I had a tree that looked as old as it actually was (possibly 75 years or more).
Just to give some perspective on how this process works to produce the impression of age, here’s the same tree two years earlier. You can clearly see the earlier state of development – juvenile shoots that had developed from trunk buds. It’s certainly a given that this was an old piece of material – the age of the trunk gave that away – but the bonsai in development looks very young in this state. So I began with old material and actually managed to make it look younger. Fortunately, I was able to do some fast development to bring back the appearance of age.
Building ramification is one of the last developmental activities we do with our bonsai. As this process continues, the tree looks more and more aged – just the way we want it.
by Zach Smith | Aug 23, 2015 | Care, Water Elm
Today I collected my last group of water-elms for 2015. The season came late this year due to high water issues. Nevertheless, I got some good specimens that will appear on our sales page perhaps as early as late next month. All in all, I have a good crop for the 2016 growing season.
Here are a couple of specimens from today:
This one has a 3″ trunk base, good rootage and good basal flare. It’s been chopped to a tapering leader, which itself has been chopped to give a total height of 18″. This tree will end up about 24″ tall when it’s finished.
I’m not convinced this is the best front for this tree. Below is a shot from a different angle:
The trunk seems more graceful from this angle, and I like the way the flaring root base looks. What do you think?
Here’s another specimen from today’s crop, which is proof that nice things can come in small packages. The trunk base on this guy is only 1.5″ in diameter, and it’s been chopped at 8″. I’m not sure which direction works best, but either way this tree will end up no taller than 12″.
It’s nice, though, isn’t it?
by Zach Smith | Aug 16, 2015 | Care, Elms, Water Elm
The water-elm collecting season is typically in July of each year in the spot I frequent. The area is intentionally flooded each winter to support water fowl and other wildlife, with the water being released beginning in June. Due to high water levels on all of our rivers this year, my collecting area stayed well under water through most of July. This made the season both late and short for 2015. But today I was able to get some specimens for next year. I thought I’d share two of them with you.
This is a unique example of the species. If it survives collecting, it’s going to get a name with “dragon” in it for sure. The trunk base is 6″ across, and it’s roughly 28″ tall from the soil surface though the body of the tree is about 42″ if you measure along it. If you look closely you can see the shari that runs from near the base all the way to near the chop. Very impressive! I can already picture a branch structure for this tree.
Here’s a “hunky” guy of a water-elm, trunk base 4″ and only 18″ to the chop. Nice rootage that I buried to keep it from drying out. It’ll take a few years to grow a new leader on this tree and make the tapering transition look smooth, but this should not be a difficult chore.
Water-elm and bald cypress are hands-down my two favorite species for bonsai. Most of you have probably tried your hand at BC. If you haven’t given water-elm a shot yet, I highly recommend it. The leaves are naturally small and reduce without any special effort, and it’s a species that loves the heat of summer (as long as you give it plenty of water). You can go from a bare trunk to a showable bonsai in as little as three years.
by Zach Smith | Jun 6, 2015 | Care, Elms, Potting, Water Elm, Wiring
As most of you know, the winter of 2014 was extremely harsh down here, so much so that I lost a number of trees during a snow and ice storm that literally froze my trees to their benches. I wasn’t alone. I only spoke with one or two of my clients up north who didn’t lose trees as well. But you move on. You get more trees, you train them, you pot them, you build them into respectable bonsai. And that’s what I’m doing.
This is one of the trees I lost last year, photographed in 2012. I had collected it in 2009, began its training that year and put it into the unique, vintage Richard Robertson oblong pot you see here. A perfect match of tree and pot, to my way of thinking. But after last year’s killing winter all I had left was the pot, which sat forlorn under one of my benches.
Enter this tree, an August 2014 collect that had refused to bud anywhere but right near the base last fall. With water-elms you don’t give up until you’re absolutely sure they’re not coming back. So this year, while all my others budded and this one re-budded near its base, I reminded myself to just leave it alone. Sure enough, come late April I saw a bud up the trunk. Whenever you see one there’s more than one, so I scoured the trunk and sure enough, there was a bud up near the very top of the tree. Amazing! So I resumed ignoring it, and buds popped everywhere and then turned to shoots and then started thickening.
Here’s the tree after trimming the excess branches, wiring up a nice branch set, giving the trunk a good cleaning, and potting into my classic Richard Robertson oblong. Isn’t it lovely?
From this point to the degree of training in the tree above will be about three years. Water-elms ramify without any coaxing, and you can stop wiring and go with grow and clip in year two.
by Zach Smith | Mar 16, 2015 | Care, Elms, Potting, Water Elm, Watering, Wiring
As many of you know, in the winter of 2014 I lost a number of trees including most of my specimen water-elms. Of the water-elms that were on benches during the snow/ice storm and 15 F deep-freeze for a couple of days after, exactly four survived – but in the case of two of them, barely.
Here’s one of them, in a photo taken in September of 2010, two months after it was collected. I direct-potted this raft into a vintage Richard Robertson tray and let it recover from collecting. During the next three years I worked to refine the planting. Then came 2014, brutal cold, and I initially thought the tree was dead. I left it along, and finally in late April I saw some hopeful buds. But there was nothing to do at that point except water the tree and wait to see what was going to happen.
So here we are in 2015, and here’s what was left of my forest; this photo was taken from the opposite direction of the first. You can see I paid no attention at all to the planting, as evidenced by the butterweed that sprang up (or maybe laziness is a better explanation). What I’ve got here is a number of shoots emerging from the spreading root base, near the original trunks. Note: the two trunks off to the side had been part of the original raft, but became separated during the collecting and potting process. I kept them with the group, which I think was the right decision.
My first step was to completely wash off the roots, to see what was going on underground. I was pleasantly surprised to find a healthy root mass. So I definitely had something to work with.
I cut back the stubs of the original trunks, trimmed off unneeded branches and new trunks, and wired those new trunks that were not moving harmoniously with the others. I also removed the smaller group from this planting, putting it in the ground for future growth and use.
Finally, my new raft/clump style bonsai begins its new life in a fine Byron Myrick tray. Obviously, the quality of this specimen is not nearly what the original was. But isn’t it better to make lemonade out of our bonsai lemons whenever possible?
I’ll post an update once the tree leafs out.
by Zach Smith | Jan 10, 2015 | Care, Elms, Potting, Water Elm
I planted out this water-elm as a cutting back in 2010. I figured it would do fine, but what I really wanted to know was how fast they’d grow in the ground under ideal conditions. Out in the swamps, water-elms have a tough life and in some places go literally under water for months on-end. We know from ring counting that it takes up to 30 years for the species to put on an inch of growth under these conditions. So you can see my incentive for the experiment.
The trunk base on this tree is right at three inches, in under five years. That’s fast growth! It got to about eight feet tall before I cut it the first time. I chopped the trunk three years ago, not because the tree had no taper – it put on taper all by itself – but rather to create the tapering transition in what will ultimately be the apex of this tree.
I lifted the tree in a couple of minutes using my handy cordless reciprocating saw. After shaking off as much of the native soil as I could, next came the root washing step. This next shot shows the result. Notice the huge root that coiled down into the ground! That one needed to come off for sure.
Here’s the tree with the roots cut back the appropriate amount for the ultimate bonsai pot. I left a couple of the branches that had grown during the tree’s development; I think they may be useable in the final design. The good thing about this tree is it makes a very strong statement. The trunk has a graceful curve, but I’m inclined to call it a masculine tree. What do you think?
Finally, here’s the tree potted in a nursery container. It’ll root profusely this year and throw enough buds on the trunk to allow for its initial shaping. By next year, the tree will be ready for a bonsai pot.
The bark on this tree is exfoliating for the first time, by the way.
This tree is available in our Elm Bonsai section. A deposit holds it till spring, when it’ll be ready for shipment.
