Foliage management for Alaskan Yellow Cedar aka cypress etc.

[River's Edge]

Wild and crazy.

Absolutely, sort of suits the Pacific Northwest. Hope to work more with this species as time goes on.

 

[River's Edge]

For those who like a challenge and are willing to share! Which front appeals to you the most? Please realise that branches and foliage are yet to be developed beyond some basic bending and cutback to create new opportunities.
I have given seven options and they are 1-7 in descending order.

 

[wireme]

For those who like a challenge and are willing to share! Which front appeals to you the most? Please realise that branches and foliage are yet to be developed beyond some basic bending and cutback to create new opportunities.
I have given seven options and they are 1-7 in descending order.

At first I was thinking six. Then I saw the eagle. So one.

 

[River's Edge]

At first I was thinking six. Then I saw the eagle. So one. View attachment 199057

Thanks for your response. I love many aspects of front number one. The drawback for me is the vertical in the centre portion. It goes have some movement from bending last year, but it is slight! That is the dead trunk portion that connects the rest of the curving deadwood to the live vein portion. Perhaps changing the planting angle to address that and raise the head at the same time? The strong suit is the view of the upper deadwood form. Tomorrow i may make a series of photos with adjusted planting angle. Always a good thing to do before finalizing the front.

I tend to think Six has perhaps the best combination of flow and unity at the current planting angle. On the other hand my wife is a fan of number one.

 

[0soyoung]

I think 2 - 5 shows a nice nebari. 7 is the best nebari but not so good for what @wireme saw being a feature.

So what has this 'pick a front' exercise to do with 'foliage management'?

... go on ....

 

[Cosmos]

I'd say 2-3 or 7. You need to highlight the dragon head and give the foliage a role to play, and I think those fit best. The nebari, to me, would be a secondary consideration here, given the uniqueness of the deadwood.

 

[River's Edge]

I think 2 - 5 shows a nice nebari. 7 is the best nebari but not so good for what @wireme saw being a feature.

So what has this 'pick a front' exercise to do with 'foliage management'?

... go on ....

Good point, in that it has nothing to do with the original title intent, except it is the same tree that started the thread and follows the progress. My apologies if it was disconcerting for you! I can see how it might have been difficult for you to see the connection.
Perhaps i should have started another thread for the same tree.

 

[River's Edge]

I'd say 2-3 or 7. You need to highlight the dragon head and give the foliage a role to play, and I think those fit best. The nebari, to me, would be a secondary consideration here, given the uniqueness of the deadwood.

Thanks for your response. I agree that the nebari in this case will not be the primary deciding factor, fortunately the nebari is suitable from several points of view.
The foliage management remains the biggest part of the puzzle. Normally this species is developed as a larger upright form that suits the frond type foliage.
However, i was intrigued by the deadwood possibilities and decided to accept the challenge. Originally the tree was laying on its side with upper roots exposed. The first two or three years involved repotting at a more suitable angle and developing a stable rootball.

 

[0soyoung]

Good point, in that it has nothing to do with the original title intent, except it is the same tree that started the thread and follows the progress. My apologies if it was disconcerting for you! I can see how it might have been difficult for you to see the connection.
Perhaps i should have started another thread for the same tree.

Oh, ouch!
Not at all what I was saying, but ouch! anyway.

The foliage management remains the biggest part of the puzzle. Normally this species is developed as a larger upright form that suits the frond type foliage.

Have you ever looked at Lakeshore Bonsai's blog? Lots of low, squatty thuja that are absolutely stunning - looks like normal thuja foliage, but maybe even the green is fine wired for show. @amkhalid used to hang out here on BNut. but you can probably better get in touch with him via the blog - clearly THE master of thuja, IMHO.

 

[River's Edge]

Oh, ouch!
Not at all what I was saying, but ouch! anyway.

Have you ever looked at Lakeshore Bonsai's blog? Lots of low, squatty thuja that are absolutely stunning - looks like normal thuja foliage, but maybe even the green is fine wired for show. @amkhalid used to hang out here on BNut. but you can probably better get in touch with him via the blog - clearly THE master of thuja, IMHO.

Cupressus not Thuja!

 

[Arcto]

For those who like a challenge and are willing to share! Which front appeals to you the most? Please realise that branches and foliage are yet to be developed beyond some basic bending and cutback to create new opportunities.
I have given seven options and they are 1-7 in descending order.

I’m leaning towards #6 as well. The deadwood is more compact, my eye doesn’t return to the carved head quite as much. You can see the root spread, the forked tail is peek a booing which adds some interest without being out front too much. How you set those branches will be pretty important. Have you considered leaning it more to the left in #6 to get that top deadwood off straight horizontal? I’ll say you pick some interesting stuff to critique.

 

[River's Edge]

Cupressus not Thuja!

It is commonly thought that the Eastern White Cedar and the Alaskan Yellow Cedar are in this same genus thuja. That is not true. Yellow Cedar
Has been placed in the cupressus genus. The foliage is a flat spray quite distinctive.
This is one of the issues, the tree has been classified in several different ways and changed with new research as recently as 2010 and then questioned again in 2011. The consensus now appears to be that it is a candidate for a monotypic genus.
Short story, it remains to be seen if the techniques on Eastern White Cedar will work on Yellow Alaskan Cedar.
That is why i posted the thread looking for those with experience with Alaskan Yellow Cedar. " Cupressus Nootkatensis"

 

[River's Edge]

I’m leaning towards #6 as well. The deadwood is more compact, my eye doesn’t return to the carved head quite as much. You can see the root spread, the forked tail is peek a booing which adds some interest without being out front too much. How you set those branches will be pretty important. Have you considered leaning it more to the left in #6 to get that top deadwood off straight horizontal? I’ll say you pick some interesting stuff to critique.

Right on! I have considered the planting angle and like the suggestion of the head and tail to be a small part of the overall rather than the focus! I prefer to work towards a unified feel rather than a specific feature. Although i worked with the head portion and tail portion it was only with the intent to add interest not create focal points. That is why the features remain suggestive and not detailed to a specific species of bird,serpent or animal.
The photo may not do the deadwood angle justice. it is on a slope with the change in taper and width throughout.
With this tree in particular i have received some very thoughtful responses from some very talented people who have seen it in person. And the responses vary, all for good reasons.
Thanks for your insight.

 

[wireme]

Right on! I have considered the planting angle and like the suggestion of the head and tail to be a small part of the overall rather than the focus! I prefer to work towards a unified feel rather than a specific feature. Although i worked with the head portion and tail portion it was only with the intent to add interest not create focal points. That is why the features remain suggestive and not detailed to a specific species of bird,serpent or animal.
The photo may not do the deadwood angle justice. it is on a slope with the change in taper and width throughout.
With this tree in particular i have received some very thoughtful responses from some very talented people who have seen it in person. And the responses vary, all for good reasons.
Thanks for your insight.

I see that you intentionally kept the creaturely details vague. Front 1 struck me as eagle like, at the least suggestive of a bird. Now I’m wondering if we can call it a Raven with three cedars growing on a mountainside above it. That vertical bit of deadwood a waterfall coming down from the mountainside, forget about bonsai and consider it a work of art full of symbolism using a tree as the medium. ??



It’s great that you have this tree to work with and are sharing it here, pretty special trees those yellow cedar.

 

[milehigh_7]

@grouper52 You know a bit about these right?

 

[River's Edge]

I see that you intentionally kept the creaturely details vague. Front 1 struck me as eagle like, at the least suggestive of a bird. Now I’m wondering if we can call it a Raven with three cedars growing on a mountainside above it. That vertical bit of deadwood a waterfall coming down from the mountainside, forget about bonsai and consider it a work of art full of symbolism using a tree as the medium. ??

View attachment 199319

It’s great that you have this tree to work with and are sharing it here, pretty special trees those yellow cedar.

Interesting and special meaning, it does seem to call out for wings. There are days when it bugs me enough to think Magpie as well!
I have tried grafting cypress and juniper to no avail after repeated attempts. Only to find that the experts cannot agree for any length of time on it's classification! Perhaps the Raven is protecting the species!

 

[grouper52]

@grouper52 You know a bit about these right?

Hi Clyde.

Probably not the best time to ask me such a question from my past ... up/down here in the heat and fatigue in Manila, after a week in the even-more-unbearable heat of my wife's childhood "Bicol Region" province down south, where we went to visit her hundreds of relatives that I didn't recall after more than a decade, and whom I hoped I smiled at convincingly enough, and uttered nonsensical Tagalog phrases at with enough accuracy to convince them that I did ...

That, and the battle with - and ultimate conquest over - a two meter Philippine cobra that her sister's family found in their home on the old ancestral land during our stay ...

And the defensively swigged/chugged 96 proof "Symon Rain, Special Pure 'Lambanog'", i.e. coconut liquer which actually made tolerable the last three hours caught in interminable Manila traffic as we made our way to the house of another one of her eleven sibs in Manila, with whom we will spend the night before returning to our "home" in Baguio tomorrow ...

Why, ... sure I remember Alaska Yellow Cedar, or whatever you want to call it, both my own collected trees, as well as the beauties that Dan Robinson collected, and which are featured in my book about him. One of my own AYCs - now in his collection at Elandan Gardens - is featured in my Media album here, as well as another if I recall correctly.

Trimming them? Conifers - which I may never work with again in this life, it seems, basically, for me, and with only a few semi-exceptions, fall into two braod categories for foliage managerment, and for better or worse, for more or less accuracy and usefulness, I break them down into two basic types for the purpose of trimming.

1). Pines - with clusters of needles; and as a first approximation I think two needle pines like the Japanese Black Pines represent the most universal and therefore most useful trees to learn on in this category;

and then -

2). The many conifers with "Fan-like" evergreen foliage, trimmed like you would trim the middle three fingers off of your hand, leaving the thumb and pinky only, such that the tree's growth branches into two directions there, and with the dense central frond cleared out, it keep the surrounding and lower foliage from "set-back" due to lack of light or ventilation caused by too much or too dense foliage. I always used this on, 1. Junipers (NO "pinching" crap for this boy - Ugh!!!, 2. Alaska Yellow Cedars, and 3. Threadbranch False and Hinoki Cypress.

Practically every other conifer that is neither a pine, nor in the "fan" style foliage category - like Larch, Hemlock, Cryptomeria, True Firs and True Cedars - are treated differently from these two categories: basically very much in a simple "clip-and-grow" manner that should seem intuitive to anyone who's worked at all with trees of any sort.

I hope that helps, and thanks, Clyde, for asking me this, and thereby allowing me to recall who I used to be, and what I used to know so well.

 

[grouper52]

Oh, and BTW, for those who are from - or who go collecting on - Vancouver Island, you may want to contact my friend, Pete Wilson, who lives up there near Cambell River last I knew. He's very familiar with all the collectable trees and areas for collecting on Vancouver Island, and is featured prominently in my book about Dan Robinson, "Gnarly Branches, Ancient Trees: The Life and Works of Dan Robinson - Bonsai Pioneer," which can be bought on Amazon.com. [A new, unsigned Second Edition is still affordable there, or directly from Elandan Gardens - tell Dan's wife, Diane, that Will Hiltz refered you for the book from your connection to him at this web site, and you can get it at a hopefully-affordable price ... ( I gave Dan and his family the rights to the book a few years back, so I have neither any finacial interest, nor any true control over such matters, but let me know if there are problems. Don't pay for the First Edition or for a signed (by me and/or Dan) copy unless such things are really important to you: last I saw we were talking "used" editions going for $500-1500 and some in no better condition than "acceptible"!

 

[grouper52]

So, here are some images, Dan 's trees:

 

[grouper52]

And mine: