Twisted trunk shimpaku

[Njyamadori]

I can’t recall exactly, but I remember thinking it was a really good price. I bought it at Suthin’s sale. Not from Suthin - one of his students had a table set up and this one was on it. It was not in good health, but it’s recovered to the point where I could attempt to layer it.

S

Oh cool. I love the tree and I can’t wait to see it wired !

 

[Dav4]

I love twisted up junipers and need to fill that void on my bench sooner then later. I certainly agree with path you're taking with this one, but am wondering if you're at all concerned about having the shari in contact with the soil once the layer is separated and potted up. In my experience, the wood on these junipers will absorb and wick water up into the higher dead wood and rot things out pretty quickly. I will say that it might not be a big concern because the dead wood at the base is still quite narrow compared to the rest of trunk base, but still something to consider. Anyway, good luck with it.

 

[markyscott]

It’s been a while since I updated this thread. The “windows” didn’t work- no roots were produced. I ended up grafting a couple of cutting grown whips to produce new roots for the tree. I’ll shorten the trunk when I am sure they’ve taken. Here’s the tree’s today with a close up of the root grafts. I’ll wire it out later this week.

 

[Brain Treez]

I'm unfamiliar with root grafts. Could you go a little deeper into how this will work? Did you graft whips onto the live veins of the main tree, and the whips had roots of their own as well? Then the plan will be for the roots initially connected to the grafted whips will end up supporting the entire tree?

 

[brentwood]

I'm unfamiliar with root grafts. Could you go a little deeper into how this will work? Did you graft whips onto the live veins of the main tree, and the whips had roots of their own as well? Then the plan will be for the roots initially connected to the grafted whips will end up supporting the entire tree?

Root grafts work like an approach graft, the donor mates up with exposed material in the trunk - instead of using the foliage, you remove it and leverage the roots of the donor material. The lower half of the donor becomes new root material, fattening up the nebari. Never done myself, curious here also.

B

 

[markyscott]

I'm unfamiliar with root grafts. Could you go a little deeper into how this will work? Did you graft whips onto the live veins of the main tree, and the whips had roots of their own as well? Then the plan will be for the roots initially connected to the grafted whips will end up supporting the entire tree?

Root grafts work like an approach graft, the donor mates up with exposed material in the trunk - instead of using the foliage, you remove it and leverage the roots of the donor material. The lower half of the donor becomes new root material, fattening up the nebari. Never done myself, curious here also.

B

@brentwood summed up the process very nicely. The root grafts in this case are simply approach grafts. Eventually, when the grafts have fully fused, I’ll remove the portion of the whip above the graft union and dispose of the foliage on the scion. I’ll then wean the tree off of its own roots. Eventually, it will be fully supported by the grafted roots allowing me to substantially shorten the trunk. If you look back over the thread, you’ll see that I originally attempted to ground layer the tree. The layer failed, so I decided to graft new roots.

S

 

[Brain Treez]

@brentwood summed up the process very nicely. The root grafts in this case are simply approach grafts. Eventually, when the grafts have fully fused, I’ll remove the portion of the whip above the graft union and dispose of the foliage on the scion. I’ll then wean the tree off of its own roots. Eventually, it will be fully supported by the grafted roots allowing me to substantially shorten the trunk. If you look back over the thread, you’ll see that I originally attempted to ground layer the tree. The layer failed, so I decided to graft new roots.

S

Thank you both for the explanations. How long will that weaning process take? Will it involve slowly expanding a "window" like your previous effort until it rings the entire lower trunk, or will you trim individual unwanted lower roots off completely in stages until you have just the new roots left?

 

[markyscott]

Thank you both for the explanations. How long will that weaning process take? Will it involve slowly expanding a "window" like your previous effort until it rings the entire lower trunk, or will you trim individual unwanted lower roots off completely in stages until you have just the new roots left?

I’ll guess it will be done in two repots. The first step will be to detach the scions from their foliage. I usually do this by both girdling the shoot with a thin aluminum wire and cutting a slice through the scion, removing the cambium layer. When I repot the first time, I’ll cut back the native roots pretty hard but won’t remove them completely. On the next repot, I’ll check how strong the scions roots are relative to the native roots. If the native roots are relatively weak and the scions roots are strong, I’ll cut back the native roots and the trunk toward the graft union.

S