For BVF and Rockm...a tree without potential?

[jkd2572]

I love it if it lives. Way to go Dario.

 

[Vance Wood]

I think the concept is good, and what you have done so far is going in a positive direction. However; trees collected in a condition like this can have the tendency to fool you. Though the Cedar Elm is a premium species and is worth the work to develop, this particular piece could fire up and push some growth to simply fizzle out sometime in May.

What happens a lot of the time a "stump" will push growth just from the stored energy in the trunk. Often; when that is used up the new growth has nothing left to support it, if the roots are gone, that will be the end of it.

If we start seeing some growth and you can keep it going through the growing season and another winter you have a winner. Then you will have a project with really good potential depending on your artistic vision.

 

[milehigh_7]

First I like what you did with it!

Second too many times in life we want to take only the easiest things to work with. This is one flaw in our society. Our schools teach to the middle of the bell curve and the stuff outside of average gets pushed aside. We as a culture don't want any more work than we have to put in.

I do bonsai for the journey with the tree I want to see what I can make out of what I have to work with. So here is what I came up with when I first saw it and it jumped right at me. Anyway, just a thought.






I would carve out the other side almost completely and let it rot. We know it will pop buds if it lives, it's an elm.

 

[Paulpash]

Why does everyone want it to heal - it won't look convincing??? Extend the shari down the trunk and into the soil line between the 2 major roots at the front and let it rot then in 5 years use a stiff brush or blow torch to get rid of the rotten material. You can use wood hardener if you want at this stage.

Tilt more to the left to use the right branch as your apex and let it grow untouched all year. Apart from the leader shear everything back to your intended silhouette twice a year then do more selective pruning in Winter to establish a base branch structure.

 

[Walter Pall]

Take a look at this:

http://walter-pall.de/maplesfield_maple_nr__4.jpg.dir/index.html

Acer campestre, field maple, from a parking lot. Hopeless case. "this will never be a bonsai" a famous bonsai artist said. Well, it was fun to prove him wrong.

So do I suggest to everybody to work with hopeless material? No, not at all. If you have a couple hundred trees you can have one in between like this. Otherwise I suggest to find the best possible material after you have ruined a couple dozen trees and start to know what you are doing.
A tree like this field maple I do NOT AT ALL suggest to folks who are new in this game (less than 5 years). This is very advanced bonsai and beginners would have no chance.

 

[rockm]

I think Dario did well with the cedar elm. It will be fine in the long run. It is a very resilient species. The gaps at the top will most likely fill in very quickly, as CE is extremely apically dominant.

 

[Poink88]

It is getting obvious to me that no potential or hopeless tree is relative and we all have different picture of it. The hopeless tree Walter just posted is a premium stock in my book and I have several worse than it. I really like how it came out though and I would admit that looking at the "as-collected" pics, I probably would have gone a different route (probably the wrong way).

Walter, if you don't mind, how long did the journey take from collection to last pic?

 

[Poink88]

Second too many times in life we want to take only the easiest things to work with. This is one flaw in our society. Our schools teach to the middle of the bell curve and the stuff outside of average gets pushed aside. We as a culture don't want any more work than we have to put in.

I do bonsai for the journey with the tree I want to see what I can make out of what I have to work with.

I really like this. Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[Poink88]

Vance,

I agree that it may be running on fumes right now but as I said, the biggest thing for me is the lesson learned in the process. Whether it survives or now is up to it now...I won't touch this the next few months. The buds are promising though...they are all plump red and looks very healthy growing everywhere. I will post an update pic once they burst open...maybe in a month or less.


I might do something about the gap late summer. I did plan on filling most of it but also intend to have some exposed dead wood.

Thanks for all the input!!!

 

[berobinson82]

Well alright. Didn't expect that certainly. Can you share a picture of the back side also?

 

[Poink88]

Can you share a picture of the back side also?

Sorry, not until it is "fixed". It is hideous right now. This is the part that suffered the most due to the shortcut I mentioned earlier. The next ones should be much better IF things go as planned.

 

[Walter Pall]

Walter, if you don't mind, how long did the journey take from collection to last pic?

six years from the first of three images that I showed here. Ten from finding the tree, loosing the top and creating what you see as first image 'hopeless'. Altogether sixteen years. It will take another five to ten years to make this showable.

Such is serious bonsai.

 

[rockm]

"Can you share a picture of the back side also?"

The back will probably be an issue for this tree for a very long time. It could require thread grafts to begin to get branching on the scar tissue (scar tissue has no "bud information" or any real ability to push new buds and branching. I have, however, found CE can do that, but it can take a very long time and selective, repeated hard pruning on nearby branches to stimulate it.

 

[JudyB]

Sorry, not until it is "fixed". It is hideous right now.

Can't be amazed by the after photos, if we don't see the whole uglified before pics...

Also, if we are to learn anything from this project, we need to be able to read all the chapters of the manual..., not the edited for prettyness version.

 

[Poink88]

Can't be amazed by the after photos, if we don't see the whole uglified before pics...

I am not here to amaze you or anyone. I am hoping to plant the idea, get those gears cranking (hopefully). I am not the spoon feeding type.

Also, if we are to learn anything from this project, we need to be able to read all the chapters of the manual..., not the edited for prettyness version.

I agree...and if you read the thread, I plan on making another w/ documentation for a tutorial I will share. This is not it. I am just showing what happened to the tree after the treatment and start what I described above interim.

 

[Poink88]

six years from the first of three images that I showed here. Ten from finding the tree, loosing the top and creating what you see as first image 'hopeless'. Altogether sixteen years. It will take another five to ten years to make this showable.

Such is serious bonsai.

Thanks Walter.

Though I try to do things faster, if it needs 25 years then so be it. I know and accept that. I just refuse to spend 25 years (esp since I could be dead by then ) on something that can be done in less if possible.

 

[Poink88]

... to begin to get branching on the scar tissue (scar tissue has no "bud information" or any real ability to push new buds and branching. I have, however, found CE can do that, ...

Very true. Lots of my CE's sprout at chop area especially if treated with cut paste...which I forgot to do on this. . I am still hoping this one will do that though.

 

[Dave Leppo]

I always wondered if this would work. I thought about slicing in four (removing two wedges @ right angles) and drawing the remainder together with a hose clamp. guess Ill wait to see how this one does.

maybe you can use the screw hole later to do a thread graft?

 

[rockm]

"Lots of my CE's sprout at chop area especially if treated with cut paste..."

Sprouting AT the cut area isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about new buds ON the scar tissue that eventually covers the (probably big) wound. That tissue is mostly incapable of sprouting new shoots, which make large pruning scars difficult to handle on smaller, much reduced trees.

 

[JudyB]

I am not here to amaze you or anyone.

duly slapped.

and I'm a spork girl anyway.