SU2
Omono
Yesterday we had to remove a chain-link fence and there were both an oak and a bougie that'd grown right into/through the fence and had to come out, the bougie was almost 4' wide (terrible clear-cut style for most of it, not worth collecting) but there was a piece to the side that was hardly connected to the main mass, growing out at a very low angle (very much the same angle I planted it at - part of the reasoning was simply that the paltry roots I'd gotten with it required such placement just to get all the roots under-substrate!)
Anyways when I went to pot it up I kept looking at upright positions and they just looked terrible, the base was just goofy looking since it'd grown at such an extremely horizontal angle that, when vertical, it just looked wrong. I considered removing the smallest trunk (maybe both of the smallest trunks), but after placing it in the pot at the 'fallen' angle, with that big chunk of deadwood on the right-side, it seemed like it worked well as a 'fallen tree style' (I'm terrible with proper style-names...maybe that's not a traditionally-recognized type but I think a fallen-tree setup could really make a cool presentation!)
Hoping for opinions on my initial setup but would also love ideas about the long-term design, as of now I'm thinking I'd grow-out a relatively-longer canopy on the big trunk (directing the growth to the left/'windswept', so will be placing this tree's ceramic-tile-base at a pretty extreme slant while growing it out), a *very* small&dense canopy on the 2nd-biggest trunk, and eventually 'sacrifice' / turn the 3rd one into a deadwood feature
Any thoughts/suggestions/opinions would be greatly appreciated!!
(I suspect to be excoriated for asking this but, keeping in-mind that this is a bougie, my instinct is to prune the ~15 shoots on the (3) trunks all back to ~2 nodes'-length apiece, I don't think there's *any* practical set-back to the tree in doing so and by making those cuts I can then be hands-off til next spring, whereas if I don't do that minimal pruning of those ~1yr old little shoots then this will spend a year growing-out from the top-most nodes on those shoots, so next spring I'll have to prune *behind* the first level of ramification, whereas if I cut that now I'll already have a round of ramification w/ virtually no lessened growth/girth, as bougies bud/shoot profusely and taking those shoots to that point really isn't going to stop it from being covered in foliage in a couple months!)
Thanks again for any thoughts on this odd specimen!!
Pics attached are of both pre-potting and in-pot, I wanted to show that the roots were so high-up on the trunk - because it was naturally growing at this low angle - that to have planted upright would've been to sacrifice a good 1/5-->1/4th of my roots...I then placed it in the pot at its 'natural' angle and thought it was a really cool aesthetic so just went with that but have never done a specimen like this so was/am very unsure of my choices here!
And the roots:
Rear-shot, note the pile of substrate (extra% sphagnum in that substrate patch) against the middle, that's where there was a side root that wasn't long-enough to reliably 'take' into the substrate, so am 'patching' it til it's grown-into the substrate and can then remove the patch / let the above-ground part lignify
Thanks again! I know it's not great stock or anything I'd just like to make the most of what it is, any & all posts are welcome/appreciated!
Anyways when I went to pot it up I kept looking at upright positions and they just looked terrible, the base was just goofy looking since it'd grown at such an extremely horizontal angle that, when vertical, it just looked wrong. I considered removing the smallest trunk (maybe both of the smallest trunks), but after placing it in the pot at the 'fallen' angle, with that big chunk of deadwood on the right-side, it seemed like it worked well as a 'fallen tree style' (I'm terrible with proper style-names...maybe that's not a traditionally-recognized type but I think a fallen-tree setup could really make a cool presentation!)
Hoping for opinions on my initial setup but would also love ideas about the long-term design, as of now I'm thinking I'd grow-out a relatively-longer canopy on the big trunk (directing the growth to the left/'windswept', so will be placing this tree's ceramic-tile-base at a pretty extreme slant while growing it out), a *very* small&dense canopy on the 2nd-biggest trunk, and eventually 'sacrifice' / turn the 3rd one into a deadwood feature
Any thoughts/suggestions/opinions would be greatly appreciated!!
(I suspect to be excoriated for asking this but, keeping in-mind that this is a bougie, my instinct is to prune the ~15 shoots on the (3) trunks all back to ~2 nodes'-length apiece, I don't think there's *any* practical set-back to the tree in doing so and by making those cuts I can then be hands-off til next spring, whereas if I don't do that minimal pruning of those ~1yr old little shoots then this will spend a year growing-out from the top-most nodes on those shoots, so next spring I'll have to prune *behind* the first level of ramification, whereas if I cut that now I'll already have a round of ramification w/ virtually no lessened growth/girth, as bougies bud/shoot profusely and taking those shoots to that point really isn't going to stop it from being covered in foliage in a couple months!)
Thanks again for any thoughts on this odd specimen!!
Pics attached are of both pre-potting and in-pot, I wanted to show that the roots were so high-up on the trunk - because it was naturally growing at this low angle - that to have planted upright would've been to sacrifice a good 1/5-->1/4th of my roots...I then placed it in the pot at its 'natural' angle and thought it was a really cool aesthetic so just went with that but have never done a specimen like this so was/am very unsure of my choices here!
And the roots:
Rear-shot, note the pile of substrate (extra% sphagnum in that substrate patch) against the middle, that's where there was a side root that wasn't long-enough to reliably 'take' into the substrate, so am 'patching' it til it's grown-into the substrate and can then remove the patch / let the above-ground part lignify
Thanks again! I know it's not great stock or anything I'd just like to make the most of what it is, any & all posts are welcome/appreciated!
