Deciduous Nebari development

[MrWunderful]

I wanted to start a thread to document and discuss developing deciduous nebari through ground layering, tourniquet methods, Ebihara techniques and ground growing.

Some backstory:

I am a firm believer in not wasting time on bad nebari. There are exceptions to every rule of course, but when developing young stock via ground growing, its almost never worth saving the seedlings original roots.

I am looking at it from the perspective of time. Not only in “saving” time, but making the best use of it while maximizing growth.



Tourniquets-

When I started growing seedlings and buying young whips for ground growing pre-bonsai, I wanted the base/nebari and trunk to be forefront. I didnt want to leave a seedling in the ground for 3 years just to have a terrible nebari, or need to be re-done anyways.

I Figured after 5-10 years I could have some good prebonsai with garby-nebari or some good prebonsai with “proper” (great?) nebari.

Of course when talking deciduous, the ideal nebari is even, powerful roots that are well distributed around the base of the trunk. Even melty and pancake like if thats your thing. Like before, this isn’t objectively the “best” type of nebari- but aiming for that is a good start for ground growing.

Ground layering works great to achieve this, but is a bit of work and better saved for mature stock that needs to have the original roots ditched.

This led me to what techniques have the best results, with least amount of time involved with preparation.

I had used wire in the past, but Last year I planted a whole bunch of seedlings trying some different techniques of tourniquets. We will see how the different items work on developing nebari.

Techniques:

Using wire
Heavy duty fender washers
Electrical jbox covers

 

[MrWunderful]

Trident ground layer.
Original base:


Didn't take a pic of actual layering process, but results:






Planted on board in collander with some light root directing. Next year I will cut back hard.

 

[MrWunderful]

Some notes about using wire as tourniquet.
It works (here on a zelkova) but I think its the least effective method. Vigorous trees may roll over the wire, and the roots still grow directly down.

 

[MrWunderful]

Here is another grey bark elm that I am developing, but using the natural nebari by cutting off the lower half of the underground section

Bare root:


Chopped


planted on a tile to send roots outward

 

[MrWunderful]

Repotted a standard JM that was layered today. Great start to a radial nebari.


This is the same Trident from earlier in the thread- roots were really well ramified. Must be the collander. I cut hard back on the roots in prep for a smaller pot next year.



They were cut back past the board and back into the colander it goes. I didnt arrange the roots at all, but I did eat into the stub at bottom so I could bring the trunk flatter into the board.

 

[MrWunderful]

Some notes about growing on steel mesh:

I planted a Zelkova forest on the mesh, hoping it would self tourniquet and give the roots a chance to start getting melty but It didnt work. The roots just got thick and kept growing. Was tough to get out, but at least forced me to cut all downward roots. Roots still had great ramification though. The forest is having more trees added this year.

 

[MrWunderful]

Tilia Cordata (small leaf linden) layered very well in the growing bed

Upside down for some reason

 

[MrWunderful]

Washers get a better “bite” than just wire but results are still decent either way.

 

[MrWunderful]

Hugely improved nebari on this JM. Normally i would have removed much more roots on the repot but the layer was performed last year.

Substrate was aoki mix.


Before:


After:

 

[MrWunderful]

Some other noteable ones.
Zelkova

Japanese Maple

I ended up setting up some other really nice layered Zelkovas that are gonna be awesome next year for ground growing, but was in a rush and didnt take pics. Next year ill remember to take them.