Water Oak

[VAFisher]

I've wanted an oak for a while now. I've tried digging a few from around here but none have survived and the species are no good for bonsai anyway. This water oak became available from Zach at a pretty nice price and I decided to go ahead and get it. He was styling it as a broom but I thought I saw more informal upright in it. Not that I'm anywhere close to Zach's level but you gotta go with your own vision I guess.

Here's the link to Zach's post on it.

http://bonsai-south.com/oaks-as-bonsai

I slipped it into this basket, pruned away the branches I didn't want in my design and wired the remaining ones. After I was done it looked like this.



And this is it today. Zach was right that it's a fast grower.



The base is buried right now but it's really good. I can't wait to get that leader thickened and get it into a nice pot to show off the base.

 

[VAFisher]

Oh, I forgot to mention that Zach originally thought he mis-identified this tree and that it was a red oak. But he did finally decide that it was a water oak after all.

 

[Potawatomi13]

Nice start. Love oaks.

 

[Giga]

will be a nice bonsai after a few years of cutback and good growth - Already has good structure

 

[Waltron]

Very cool tree. your avatar photo looks like its one of Zach's as well maybe? Big fan of his, and I have a fair few trees in the same stage and similar to this, curious to see what you make of it

 

[VAFisher]

Very cool tree. your avatar photo looks like its one of Zach's as well maybe? Big fan of his, and I have a fair few trees in the same stage and similar to this, curious to see what you make of it

Yep, the avatar tree is an American Elm from Zach. I too am a big fan of his work. In all, I have 4 trees from Zach. American Elm, Water Elm, Water Oak and Riverflat Hawthorn.

 

[Waltron]

sweet! sounds like a good collection! crazy how he chopped all the roots down to basically just bare bones structure at collection, I'm going to give that method a shot this year, I think it solves quite a few problems.

 

[VAFisher]

sweet! sounds like a good collection! crazy how he chopped all the roots down to basically just bare bones structure at collection, I'm going to give that method a shot this year, I think it solves quite a few problems.

It was collected this January and it has a pot full of roots now. Crazy.

 

[rockm]

sweet! sounds like a good collection! crazy how he chopped all the roots down to basically just bare bones structure at collection, I'm going to give that method a shot this year, I think it solves quite a few problems.

Yeah. It does.

 

[Vin]

Nice start. You should know however that Water Oaks are fairly short lived (it will probably outlive you though). We have them by the bazillions around here but I've never collected any for that reason. Have fun with it!

 

[Zach Smith]

Nice start. You should know however that Water Oaks are fairly short lived (it will probably outlive you though). We have them by the bazillions around here but I've never collected any for that reason. Have fun with it!

Don't miss out on a great species for bonsai if you have good material available. They ramify very well and the leaves get down to 1" or less. Sure, they don't live more than 100 years or so, but then again neither do we.

 

[Waltron]

I always thought that the tree age thing was based off, or related to observed averages of trees in nature, but I thought that bonsai cultivation actually greatly increases the max age of a tree? I know some trees are shorter lived in gerneral, but isn't it usually due to the roots running to far away from the trunk or some other thing related to living in a natural environment? Animals in captivity have much longer life spans generally.. and there is a Jelly fish out there that actually can live forever, as long as its not killed... doesnt that idea hold true for tree species? captivity for a bonsai tree would rid the roots running to far, or lack of nutrient or light competetion.. fire, pests..lightning..or is there some biological clock that eventually just tells it to die? I guess it would take quite the research project.. but hey I'd bet that sucker is good for 200

 

[rockm]

The thinking is that trees get so big in the wild that they eventually outgrow their physical capacity to distribute nutrients. Their roots become inefficient at pushing nutrients out a 45 foot branch...Their roots become thicker and thicker nearer the trunk. Thick roots don't act as "feeder" roots. The fine feeder roots get further and further from the tree making their operation less and less efficient. Same goes for the top growth which keeps getting further and further away from the roots--which it supports (and vice versa).

That tree simply stops working correctly and parts of it start to die off. That can take centuries in the case of oaks or even millennia in the case of bristlecone pines. With some species it works more quickly.

With root pruning in bonsai, you're cutting off the inefficient portion of the root mass and forcing the tree to replace them with a mass of ever-more efficient feeder roots closer to the trunk. Same for top pruning. Theoretically, anyway, a tree under such conditions can live a very very long time. The Miyaki pine at the National Arboretum began its bonsai cultivation 390 years ago.

In practice, however, some trees just don't aren't genetically equipped to go that distance.

 

[aml1014]

Both of you are correct @rockm , @Waltron . It is the fact that the plants get so large after a certain amount of time that the can no longer sustain themselves. I don't remember where but I read that in theory, bonsai can live forever. The are not beings that have biological time clocks, but are basically run off of vascular tubes that transport what's needed where it needs to go. In bonsai culture we are constantly trying to keep the tree as healthy as possible. We keep fine feeders close to the trunk, we stimulate more growth through pruning and fertilizing.
Basically we are keeping the trees small and "young" which tend to be the most vigorous plants in nature.

Aaron

 

[Zach Smith]

I always thought that the tree age thing was based off, or related to observed averages of trees in nature, but I thought that bonsai cultivation actually greatly increases the max age of a tree? I know some trees are shorter lived in gerneral, but isn't it usually due to the roots running to far away from the trunk or some other thing related to living in a natural environment? Animals in captivity have much longer life spans generally.. and there is a Jelly fish out there that actually can live forever, as long as its not killed... doesnt that idea hold true for tree species? captivity for a bonsai tree would rid the roots running to far, or lack of nutrient or light competetion.. fire, pests..lightning..or is there some biological clock that eventually just tells it to die? I guess it would take quite the research project.. but hey I'd bet that sucker is good for 200

I'm not sure, but my observation from nature is that water oaks eventually rot out through their centers, and this process of deterioration does them in. We often only learn they've rotted out when they get blown over in a storm. I had a huge one in my side yard that was surely at max age for the species in the wild, that just up and died one droughty summer. But I already knew it was doomed, because it had a dead section of trunk running up the back side of it.

I would venture to say that with good horticultural practice a water oak bonsai could be expected to outlive its counterpart in the wild. Just a guess, of course - won't be testing that theory considering that I'm most of the age limit of a water oak already.

Cheers,

Zach

 

[Zach Smith]

I've wanted an oak for a while now. I've tried digging a few from around here but none have survived and the species are no good for bonsai anyway. This water oak became available from Zach at a pretty nice price and I decided to go ahead and get it. He was styling it as a broom but I thought I saw more informal upright in it. Not that I'm anywhere close to Zach's level but you gotta go with your own vision I guess.

Here's the link to Zach's post on it.

http://bonsai-south.com/oaks-as-bonsai


The base is buried right now but it's really good. I can't wait to get that leader thickened and get it into a nice pot to show off the base.

Man, that's looking really good, Dan!

 

[VAFisher]

Man, that's looking really good, Dan!

Thanks a lot Zach.

 

[VAFisher]

Update on my Water Oak. It did well last year. I had one scare with a bad storm that rolled through when I was at work. I came home to find it laying on the ground, but nothing was broken and most of the soil was still in the basket, so it came through that fine. I was worried this winter because it held onto its leaves well into February, which Zach tells me is normal for the species. I finally just removed the remaining leaves manually. I bought a new pot for it and repotted as the buds were swelling. It's now almost fully leafed out again so I've had to move it in and out a lot this month (as with all my trees).

I also did some work on the chop. This year I need to let it grow wild to thicken up the leader and the branches, but I think it's off to a good start.

 

[Steve Kudela]

Oh, I forgot to mention that Zach originally thought he mis-identified this tree and that it was a red oak. But he did finally decide that it was a water oak after all.

Rounded lobes, white oaks............pointed lobes, red oaks. That one appears to be a hybridized water oak

 

[VAFisher]

It's growing strong this spring and filling in nicely. I plan to let it go wild this year to help thicken the branches.