the age of a tree

[maverickheath]

I know you find the age of a tree by the rings in side the trunk but I don't want to cut my new bonsai open is they any outher way ???

 

[A Random User]

Just Guess! And add about 50 years when you are telling folks it's age...
A tree's age to most doing bonsai, is not really of any importance. Seeing one is often creating the "appearance" of an older age anyways.

 

[Cypress187]

Make an uri with a hole saw and count the rings of the piece you drilled out, it will look 20 years older after it

 

[Andrew Legg]

Thing to do is get hold of Donald Trump's toupee, and tie it to a piece of string about 5 feet long. Swing it over your head, and then build speed slowly. When it gets up to speed, zap it at the trunk of the tree. It will make a clean cut at a cellular level, severing the vascular tissue perfectly. Make sure you have an assistant to catch the top half of the tree, and count the rings. While you put the toupee to death, a third person must get some self vulcanising tape and while your assistant immediately puts the severed bits back together (note this must happen very quickly to avoid vascular flow. disturbance) in original alignment, the third person tapes it all together. Voilà. It will take a few more minutes of your attention to kill the codpiece, but then it's done.

Or, you can not worry about the age and just enjoy it.

 

[maverickheath]

Haha fine I won't I'll was just wondering that's all

 

[Andrew Legg]

More seriously though, the best judge of age in a bonsai is experience and knowing the history of the tree, like whether it was ground grown, grown in a pot all its life or yamadori, climate, intermodal lengths, levels of ramifications detail, bark quality, nearing spread etc etc. There are too many variables in most cases for more than an estimate I reckon. If you post a few photos I'm sure folks will hazard a guess here.

 

[CWTurner]

It's an interesting question. If a tree lives for years without much thickening of the trunk, the rings inside it might be too tight to count anyway. I'd guess that's the case with some of those western yamadori. Maybe with a microscope?
CW

 

[aml1014]

It's an interesting question. If a tree lives for years without much thickening of the trunk, the rings inside it might be too tight to count anyway. I'd guess that's the case with some of those western yamadori. Maybe with a microscope?
CW

Yes sir a microscope, in a bonsai pot plants thicken so slow that the growth rings are literally microscopic.

 

[maverickheath]

Or they just don't have any ?

 

[0soyoung]

It seems to me that one ought to be able to take a sample with a bone biopsy 'needle' - the hole would be so small that it should heal over as well as be inconsequential to the tree's hydraulics. A microscope would be necessary to see the light-dark bands in such a thin core.

More than one dark ring can appear each year because of unseasonal droughts; in other words there could be the appearance of more than one ring per season. Usually we estimate one ring per year, but there could be two --> the tree is no older that the number of rings counted, but it could half that.

 

[JoeR]

Maybe you could do something similar to a thread graft? If you can keep the "core" intact you could pull it out and count the rings.

Idk if that makes sense.

 

[aml1014]

It seems to me that one ought to be able to take a sample with a bone biopsy 'needle' - the hole would be so small that it should heal over as well as be inconsequential to the tree's hydraulics. A microscope would be necessary to see the light-dark bands in such a thin core.

More than one dark ring can appear each year because of unseasonal droughts; in other words there could be the appearance of more than one ring per season. Usually we estimate one ring per year, but there could be two --> the tree is no older that the number of rings counted, but it could half that.

The native one seed juniper is like that, it has the ability to stop growth and go dormant if they are unable to access water and start growing again whenever there is water. After all they have the longest roots in the world on average there is around 3 to 6 inches of growth a year and vice versa with the roots only instead of inches it's feet lol

 

[CWTurner]

The native one seed juniper is like that, it has the ability to stop growth and go dormant if they are unable to access water

Sounds like the perfect bonsai for folk who vacation often.
CW

 

[aml1014]

Sounds like the perfect bonsai for folk who vacation often.
CW

I have a feeling it's more drought tolerant in the ground lol but people in my club have them and they actually make quite nice Bonsai.