I shamelessly copied Smoke's 5 trees in a hole project...

[0soyoung]

Where is Smoke these days? Is he just blogging nowadays?

Seems to be - he even had a blog post recently featuring his 'friend from Georgia' to whom he gave a magic stick.

 

[Adair M]

Where is Smoke these days? Is he just blogging nowadays?

Yes

 

[misfit11]

Thanks for sharing Fonz! This is great. I'm going to try one of these, too. Another shameless copycat

 

[Trenthany]

Thats pretty observant. Actually if you look at the position of the tree, the pot is turned sideways to take a picture of the tree "moving forward" like in the controversial post that @Adair M was rather chatty in. My point is that I do not train my trees to look like this. It is a natural phenomenon of working the apex over years. Nothing more. The reason all the super duper Japanese ( and American for that matter) trees look like that is that they have been working the apex for decades.

In the end I took 15 pictures of trees that had forward facing apex, and apex over the base. I didn't see a reason to move forward with the post. I am not an elitist and do not train my trees in that way. Since the apex move forward due to working the tree over a period of years, I figure that all those that find this fascinating will find that out over the due coarse of working a tree for a longer period of time on their own just like I did.

The forward lean was mentioned in a visual psychology oriented arrival on bonsai recently posted in one of my two oak discussions. One accidentally took over marky’s post on his live oak and the other was one I asked about a cluster natural shape and it sparked a loooot of heated opinions. I think you were in one even. It seems if they’re correct it’s because we see trees as looming typically because of their height so the forward lean simulates that and makes the tree more “tree like”. The words they used were that it makes the bonsai fit our schema for a tree. It’s quite the interesting read and if I can find it I’ll link it here. A lot of what they discussed supports the principles that most bonsai are grown under. It definitely has me thinking.

Found it quickly! Here (Yay! Figured out the hyperlink thing! Probably more features in there I should look at!)

 

[Fonz]

Ok, little update on this project.
I let them grow a bit too straight this year. But that can be fixed. Here's what I did today.
The 5 trees became 4 trees. 1 of them will have to go but can stay for now to thicken the whole thing.

 

[leatherback]

looking good. Happy playing!

 

[Fonz]

Can't believe another year has passed. Here's this year's update.

I decided to grow a triple trunk and let it grow bigger than initially planned. The 4th trunk is still there to fasten the process of building a firm nebari.

Before working the tree:



The roots and trunks have fused nicely already:



Look from above:



After branch selection and pointing everything in the right direction again.

 

[rootpuma]

I wonder if I can get multiple fukien tea to fuse like this?

 

[0soyoung]

I wonder if I can get multiple fukien tea to fuse like this?

Why wouldn't they?
If you cut a branch and look at the cross-section, do you not see wood surrounded by bark with a layer of cells in between that allows the two to be separated? That layer of cells in-between is the cambium that makes stems grow radially. Maples, elms, hawthorns, chestnuts, hornbeams, pines, spruces, firs, junipers, cypresses, and many more species are built this way - even vines, but they don't thicken much or very slowly (over the course of decades instead of years.

Palm trees aren't built this way. Neither are cycads. Jade plants aren't either. And neither are the very young stems of virtually every species.


Got a few jade plant stems? It might be fun to try fusing those as well as trying to fuse some fukien tea stems

 

[Katie0317]

Why wouldn't they?
If you cut a branch and look at the cross-section, do you not see wood surrounded by bark with a layer of cells in between that allows the two to be separated? That layer of cells in-between is the cambium that makes stems grow radially. Maples, elms, hawthorns, chestnuts, hornbeams, pines, spruces, firs, junipers, cypresses, and many more species are built this way - even vines, but they don't thicken much or very slowly (over the course of decades instead of years.

Palm trees aren't built this way. Neither are cycads. Jade plants aren't either. And neither are the very young stems of virtually every species.


Got a few jade plant stems? It might be fun to try fusing those as well as trying to fuse some fukien tea stems

I bought a jade bonsai 10+ years ago and treated it like a houseplant. It stayed small and a couple of the trunks fused after all those years. It's the only reason I've kept it in a bonsai pot. (Have moved it out of the house though.) I have trouble seeing jade plants as legit bonsai.

 

[Fonz]

And another year flew by, damn I'm getting older real fast this way

The trident clump grew like crazy this year. No pics of the project in leaves. Have to remember that for this year.

Here's how the tree(s) looked earlier today before the work started:



After the cutback:



View from above:



After wiring and putting on cut paste:



I'm going to leave the tree growing freely this year and next year I'm going to take it out of it's wooden growbox and put it in it's 1st bonsai pot. From there on I'll start working on the branches.

 

[Fonz]

So I gave it a summer haircut and removed 1 of the trunks so now 3 trunks remain.

 

[ibakey]

How is the clump doing this year? Hope to see an image of the root base!
Looks awfully fun.

 

[Fonz]

How is the clump doing this year? Hope to see an image of the root base!
Looks awfully fun.

It's in winter storage now. Will take a picture once it gets out of there

 

[SaltySea]

How is this tree doing? I hope it had a good year.