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Today’s Halloween, and Halloween is my birthday, so I took the day off and it turned out to be a perfect day to do some work on the Dragon, my super-duper Water-elm (Planera aquatica). For those of you unfamiliar with this tree, here it is in “stick” form back in Summer 2015. A not-so-humble beginning – trunk base 5.5″ across, 42″ in length, nice “dragony” trunk.

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Here it is back in July, after getting wired and growing and getting unwired and trimmed.

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Here’s the first shot from this morning. The tree is developing right on schedule. But it does need to have the dead wood treated with lime sulfur. It’s mostly very durable, but I don’t want to see any insect damage.

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After the trim and treatment. I’ll pot up this tree in the spring, once I have the custom pot in hand that I’ll be ordering soon. I also need to carve out the shari into the new apex. Easy stuff.

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I caught a glimpse of this tree from another angle, and wondered if I had the front right.

I think there are definitely two options. This one seems a good bit more dramatic.

What do you think? Speak before it gets potted in spring!