ROR Trident project

[Brian Van Fleet]

A little further along.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

A shot from today…I like how it is widening and flattening just a little.

 

[Dav4]

I love the way this composition has matured over the years, and I really love it being photographed on that old stand. Throw in some fall color and fallen leaves and the wabi sabi meter will be through the roof.

 

[Ja_De]

I'd like to know how these are doing as well...

Wanted to know if anyone has tried using expandable foam to force the roots to mold to the rock? I can't remember where I heard this idea (a lecture or symposium somewhere), and can't recall all the details - but the basic idea was to wrap the roots around the rock using plastic, then apply an expanding foam outside of that. The foam, as it expands, supposedly will force the roots into the nooks and crannies of the rock more effectively than the standard methods.

Chris

Very late to the party here... Seems like one would want to use "minimally expanding" foam as it's very powerful stuff. Enough to affect the open and closing of windows and doors.

 

[leatherback]

today

interesting how the looped root has just completely closed!

Over winter I will open up my ROR tridents started during the-years-we-do-not-mention-by-name

 

[Dabbler]

I just want to see some nudies of this...

 

[leatherback]

I just want to see some nudies of this...

Be carefull.. This is not an R18+ site!

 

[Dabbler]

Be carefull.. This is not an R18+ site!

yeah I know sometimes I get on here expecting nudies, I always leave disappointed...

 

[badatusernames]

Love this tree. I have a starter on a tall stone like that which I got from Bjorn's open house a couple years ago. I think it has a couple more years of just thickening, maybe more depending on how it grows.

I was curious - if you were to do this again knowing what you know now, would you have left it in a grow pot longer as it developed? It obviously did just fine... I have mine buried pretty deep right now in a high fired terracotta. The roots seemed pretty well connected to the rock, but where the could use it, I tied them tighter with raffia.

I even actually have an Ichiyo similarly shaped to your Ino, though not arched... Got it cheap due to some fairly minor chipping on the rim. I may be trying to re-create this one a bit! Got the pot during my early "need more pots, need all the pots" phase and am always keeping an eye out for what to use it for...

 

[raffaelbaer]

comming along really nice, leaf size is also really small compared to the tridents Im growing, amazing how they can shrink so much, just by less vigorous growth, large amounts of buds on the tree (=> less energy received by each), and the small pot...

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

I was curious - if you were to do this again knowing what you know now, would you have left it in a grow pot longer as it developed? It obviously did just fine... I have mine buried pretty deep right now in a high fired terracotta. The roots seemed pretty well connected to the rock, but where the could use it, I tied them tighter with raffia.

The only thing I might do differently is seat the tree itself tighter on the stone, maybe through some carving. Eventually it will fuse, but if you look all the way back to the beginning, the trunk was already pinky-thick, so it wasn’t as malleable and there is still a small gap…16 years later.

Originally I had envisioned the tree developing a nice radial nebari skirt around the base of the rock going into the soil, but that has been very slow to develop. Maybe leaving it in a grow pot longer would have helped that along. For me, trident roots fill a pot much slower than a J maple.

I like the overall proportions, where the roots do/don’t show on the rock, and since I like the rock, I don’t want it to become swallowed.

 

[badatusernames]

Makes sense! Thank you!

 

[badatusernames]

For comparison, here’s what I’m working with - the stone is deep in the pot but it’s about as tall as yours.

If it hadn’t been repotted this year I think it would have grown taller / thicker, so I think I’ll let it go wild next year and then assess a chop in spring 2026

Anyways, like I said yours was definitely an inspiration for lugging this back from Nashville…. We will see what happens! I do kinda wonder if I want to raise the stone out of the soil more though.

Looks like I should clean the junk off the soil surface too…

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Strong resemblance!

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Fall color, not great because it’s been a hot and dry fall up to about last week.

 

[MACH5]

Love it Bri!! One of my favorites from your collection.

 

[Dav4]

Fall color, not great because it’s been a hot and dry fall up to about last week.
View attachment 576620

Perfect...

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Leafless now.