PA_Penjing
Chumono
In 2013 I was beginning to get obsessed with bonsai and one of the species I grew from seed was the dawn redwood. I had terrible germination and ultimately only 1 survived. 3 years later my girlfriend bought a house (she's my wife now) so I hastily chopped the DR and dug it out of the garden bed in October to bring with me. Our backyard was tiny and had no privacy from the alley behind, so I planted the dorky stick in the back of the yard. I was crazy busy with home repairs and just left the tree alone to grow.
It's growth was so lanky and awkward I decided to leave it as a yard tree. in 2018 my wife's cat, Jack died. To try to console her I said we'd bury him under the redwood so his energy would be absorbed and cycled through our garden. I had to start trimming the tree twice a year to keep it from growing into the power lines above, I had no clue these things grow like 7 feet a year when I planted it. This past fall of 2023 I had to make the call to cut the tree down, it was 14" across and I was starting to worry about our sewer lines and sidewalk nearby. Also all that trimming was a crazy amount of work. So I took a bunch of hard wood cuttings since the tree was sentimental to my wife. Once I saw that one of the cuttings was definitely rooted this March I cut the main tree down.
I was making sure that the cutting was stable before I planted it somewhere else this fall but now I kind of feel like "Jack the tree" deserves to stay with us. Afterall it has kind of been 11 years in the making. So here is my current 4 month(ish) old dawn redwood that I have been resisting using for bonsai for 11 years haha. I don't see many great example of DR bonsai but maybe fate will save me and we'll wind up moving to a house with a big enough yard to put jack back in the ground. Until then, this thread will be the progression thread.
I wish I had taken a photo of it as a cutting, it's doubled in size. But who takes a picture of a hardwood cutting?
It's growth was so lanky and awkward I decided to leave it as a yard tree. in 2018 my wife's cat, Jack died. To try to console her I said we'd bury him under the redwood so his energy would be absorbed and cycled through our garden. I had to start trimming the tree twice a year to keep it from growing into the power lines above, I had no clue these things grow like 7 feet a year when I planted it. This past fall of 2023 I had to make the call to cut the tree down, it was 14" across and I was starting to worry about our sewer lines and sidewalk nearby. Also all that trimming was a crazy amount of work. So I took a bunch of hard wood cuttings since the tree was sentimental to my wife. Once I saw that one of the cuttings was definitely rooted this March I cut the main tree down.
I was making sure that the cutting was stable before I planted it somewhere else this fall but now I kind of feel like "Jack the tree" deserves to stay with us. Afterall it has kind of been 11 years in the making. So here is my current 4 month(ish) old dawn redwood that I have been resisting using for bonsai for 11 years haha. I don't see many great example of DR bonsai but maybe fate will save me and we'll wind up moving to a house with a big enough yard to put jack back in the ground. Until then, this thread will be the progression thread.
I wish I had taken a photo of it as a cutting, it's doubled in size. But who takes a picture of a hardwood cutting?
