Emanon
Mame
Long story short(!), I was hoping, if possible, to get some advice on where should I go with this tree...planting angle and/or otherwise? I'd be most grateful for any advice at all.
Background: I have a pre-bonsai, stick in a pot, Monterey cypress. It's been growing in a bonsai pot since I first got it as a seedling. I've never really wired it properly but have, instead, used guy-wires to keep the, lower part of the trunk and its bottom branches as horizontal as possible. I then allowed the upper part of the trunk to grow as a sacrifice in service of increasing trunk girth.
So prior to my most recent repot my (vague) plan all along was to have the tree flowing all in one direction and mostly horizontal to the ground. I live on the coast and I planned on having it look like cypresses usually see where the constant wind from the sea has done something similar. (I've attached a few pictures of trees in nature or otherwise that I used for inspiration. Not all Monterey cypresses...)
Last minute, I got the idea of having the tree bend back over itself, keeping the sacrificial part of the trunk as part of the tree, and having it bend in the opposite direction from the lower half of the tree. Like the wind bent it back on itself, after struggling to fight it initially. As a result I repotted the tree so that the initial part of the trunk was not completely flat and half buried (like it had been its whole life up until this point). But then I chopped some of this top sacrificial part of the trunk off any way, and shari-ed it, because it always bothered me how straight it was.
Next spring I will probably repot this tree. I'm torn if I should again lower the angle of bottom part of the trunk, making the tree mostly horizontal again, or if I should keep it as is. Either way, I have lost the story of the tree.
Attached Photos: I don't really know how to mark-up photos and I can only do the most basic of things in Photoshop. I used the Magic Wand tool, selected as much of just the tree as I could, to isolate it as it is today. In the picture with the red number "1"... that is the outline of the tree as it is now and its current planted angle. In the picture with the red number "2" that was the original angle before last repotting. The story with the latter angle "2", again, was that the tree was growing horizontal (as a result of the wind off the sea), tried to right itself, but then had this top part of the trunk that dared defy the wind blown off in a storm or something. I don't see how the current tree makes sense (and as seen in the pic with the red "1").
After those two pics I've included three pics of the tree as it is now (two of the best front in my opinion and one of the back) and then three pics going back in time until it was a seedling. These show the old planting angle. Then I posted a few of the original inspiration photos I stole off the Internet, including one from Mirai of a different type of cypress. Then...finally...is a picture of what I was imagining when I repoted the tree recently (the bending back on itself story).
I am so so sorry for so so much! I've been meaning to post for some time...
Background: I have a pre-bonsai, stick in a pot, Monterey cypress. It's been growing in a bonsai pot since I first got it as a seedling. I've never really wired it properly but have, instead, used guy-wires to keep the, lower part of the trunk and its bottom branches as horizontal as possible. I then allowed the upper part of the trunk to grow as a sacrifice in service of increasing trunk girth.
So prior to my most recent repot my (vague) plan all along was to have the tree flowing all in one direction and mostly horizontal to the ground. I live on the coast and I planned on having it look like cypresses usually see where the constant wind from the sea has done something similar. (I've attached a few pictures of trees in nature or otherwise that I used for inspiration. Not all Monterey cypresses...)
Last minute, I got the idea of having the tree bend back over itself, keeping the sacrificial part of the trunk as part of the tree, and having it bend in the opposite direction from the lower half of the tree. Like the wind bent it back on itself, after struggling to fight it initially. As a result I repotted the tree so that the initial part of the trunk was not completely flat and half buried (like it had been its whole life up until this point). But then I chopped some of this top sacrificial part of the trunk off any way, and shari-ed it, because it always bothered me how straight it was.
Next spring I will probably repot this tree. I'm torn if I should again lower the angle of bottom part of the trunk, making the tree mostly horizontal again, or if I should keep it as is. Either way, I have lost the story of the tree.
Attached Photos: I don't really know how to mark-up photos and I can only do the most basic of things in Photoshop. I used the Magic Wand tool, selected as much of just the tree as I could, to isolate it as it is today. In the picture with the red number "1"... that is the outline of the tree as it is now and its current planted angle. In the picture with the red number "2" that was the original angle before last repotting. The story with the latter angle "2", again, was that the tree was growing horizontal (as a result of the wind off the sea), tried to right itself, but then had this top part of the trunk that dared defy the wind blown off in a storm or something. I don't see how the current tree makes sense (and as seen in the pic with the red "1").
After those two pics I've included three pics of the tree as it is now (two of the best front in my opinion and one of the back) and then three pics going back in time until it was a seedling. These show the old planting angle. Then I posted a few of the original inspiration photos I stole off the Internet, including one from Mirai of a different type of cypress. Then...finally...is a picture of what I was imagining when I repoted the tree recently (the bending back on itself story).
I am so so sorry for so so much! I've been meaning to post for some time...
One of my buddies lived in Rancho Bernardo and as far as I'm concerned he might as well have been in Palm Springs 
