White Cedar Yamadori

[fourteener]

I gathered this White Cedar three years ago. The design work was done this last summer. This year I am going to plant it more upright to try and give it as much height as possible.

It is the essence of windswept. Growing on a shoreline here in Northern MN. It's had a hard life and is estimated to be over 300 years old. Hopefully the white will be tamed down this summer and the initial design work can be finished off.

Any advice on how to keep the dead wood around and below the soil line from rotting over time?

 

[fourteener]

Honest, I'm actually a decent photographer. But when you don't check your pictures on the computer, the little lcd screen lies a little.

 

[amkhalid]

View attachment 31787View attachment 31788
Any advice on how to keep the dead wood around and below the soil line from rotting over time?

Thanks for posting this, I love Thuja. I've been collecting and growing them for about 5 years but have many friends who have been doing it for much longer.

First make sure you remove all the old muck from the inner rootball with a hose next time you repot (assuming the tree is at peak health). Replace it with very coarse inorganic like lava rock or pumice so you never have to deal with it again. This will keep excess dampness away from the deadwood.

From the on its just a matter of keeping the deadwood clean (free of algae and moss). If it is already thin and hollow you might want to treat it with a wood hardener like PC Petrifier, but Thuja wood is very resilient. If anything, you will only have to treat it near the soil level. Below the soil it will inevitably rot. No big deal.

Is the live vein mated to the deadwood from any other angle? The separation of the two affects the impact of the tree, I think.

 

[fourteener]

Have you used the PC Petrifier. I got it as a recommendation, but I didn't have something I wanted to practice on. I've heard that I should wait until the lime sulpher I applied gets to an acceptable color. Is it a one and done application or do you do it more? Any advice would be welcomed.

 

[october]

This is magnificent material. I would post it in the "other conifers" section. It might get more attention there.

I am curious to see how it will look in a more upright postion.

Rob

 

[fourteener]

Thanks for posting this, I love Thuja. I've been collecting and growing them for about 5 years but have many friends who have been doing it for much longer.

First make sure you remove all the old muck from the inner rootball with a hose next time you repot (assuming the tree is at peak health). Replace it with very coarse inorganic like lava rock or pumice so you never have to deal with it again. This will keep excess dampness away from the deadwood.

From the on its just a matter of keeping the deadwood clean (free of algae and moss). If it is already thin and hollow you might want to treat it with a wood hardener like PC Petrifier, but Thuja wood is very resilient. If anything, you will only have to treat it near the soil level. Below the soil it will inevitably rot. No big deal.

Is the live vein mated to the deadwood from any other angle? The separation of the two affects the impact of the tree, I think.

There are two live veins. The obvious one starts from the base on the right. The second one looks exactly like a Phoenix graft. It runs up the back side and the foliage at the very top of the tree is the result.

 

[amkhalid]

Have you used the PC Petrifier. I got it as a recommendation, but I didn't have something I wanted to practice on. I've heard that I should wait until the lime sulpher I applied gets to an acceptable color. Is it a one and done application or do you do it more? Any advice would be welcomed.

I've used it on potentilla. Nick Lenz uses it as well (one of his students told me about it). It looks like white glue and gives the wood a slight sheen which looks somewhat artificial, but disappears after a few weeks.

It needs to be reapplied periodically. So if you don't like it, rest assured it won't be forever.

My friend did an entire ancient Thuja with PC Pet. Most thuja don't need it, but this one is just a ribbon of deadwood... very tall and brittle especially at the base. And very old. The tree still looked great after.

 

[amkhalid]

There are two live veins. The obvious one starts from the base on the right. The second one looks exactly like a Phoenix graft. It runs up the back side and the foliage at the very top of the tree is the result.

Might be interesting to see the one that is connected to the wood. Right now it kind of looks like a young thuja grew next to an old dead trunk. Having them physically connected would make the image more interesting, I think.

 

[fourteener]

Might be interesting to see the one that is connected to the wood. Right now it kind of looks like a young thuja grew next to an old dead trunk. Having them physically connected would make the image more interesting, I think.

The side shown is vastly more interesting than the backside. What is now the front, was the top when I found this wedged into a rock. The weathering, chiseled bark, twisted regrowth is all on this side. Ryan Neil got me started on this tree at a workshop in the summer of 2012.

The ribbon on the back will probably always be our little secret.

The dead limb that was cut of for design purposes in the middle of tree had an impressive number of rings. I chopped off a clean edge, sanded it, oiled it, took a picture under a microscope. There was around 70-75 rings. That's 70 years per inch of diameter. Pretty old.

 

[crust]

Dearest Fourteener,
I agree with Akmhalid in that dry soil components , cleaning (ongoing) will help. I would add that frequent apps of LS to the edge seems to have been the most effective for me on my WC. I mix up a 70/30 mix and tone it with acrylic artist paint and put it in a little squeeze bottle like a eye dropper. I pull the soil back a bit, besure its clean and not too wet, then armed with a paper to wick up overage, I work the edge. I blend it up with a tooth brush. As far as WH (Minwax, penetrating epoxy, Real epoxy, acrylic ones like PC wood hardener), I have experimented a lot and have found for me with big bulky wood chunks it works only marginally and eventually it is overtaken. If you do WH on this I would only use it at the soil line. I would follow the same procedure as I outlined for applying the LS. But I would not do the WH and only the LS--and I would do it every year. I has helped for me.

 

[crust]

Might be interesting to see the one that is connected to the wood. Right now it kind of looks like a young thuja grew next to an old dead trunk. Having them physically connected would make the image more interesting, I think.

Hey Amkhalid, I got to see this one in person and it is super nice. It suffers from exactly what you are noting. A malady I have seen with collectible cedars commonly in the wild. The can look like a dead stump with seedling growing out from under them.
Here is my take: The greatest asset of this plant is not very apparent in a image. It is the weathered texture of the trunk. The bulk is evident but the details are very interesting and look very OLD--this is the gift of this tree, it is a great find and has special meaning because of its origin.

Main rule; do not obliterate this (no grinding carving, nothing more than a tooth brush--leave alone). Try to showcase this.The first picture of the trunk is definitely more exciting than after working it.

The LS hides this some and I think the whole trunk could be restained. Using a spare deadwood to test either make a natural stain or use a water based stain or watered down pigments and give it a good toning down--sometime by wiping on a darker stain into the crevices it highlights them--OR just wait. I don't usually treat upper trunks so much on cedars--they last and last.

The trees position seems pretty fixed to me and the lack of apparent connective veins is just the way it is.

However to keep subordinate, and diminish the vast difference from the character of the live wood and the DW is the mission. So, on the live wood I may consider very artistically exposing some lines of shari. Try some long term hard wiring to reduce the tubular Juvenal look of some of the sub-trunks.

Really to me the green is but a sprig of charm. The weathered trunk is the whats talking.

 

[fourteener]

I used to do model tanks, boats, etc... and one way to create good shadows was to mix mineral spirits and a touch of black paint. The watered down black paint would run into the cracks and create the shadows that give the feeling of depth.

Is there a bonsai version of doing that? Will it look tacky if done wrong?

 

[monza]

Fantastic yamadori!

Yes there is a bonsai version to your staining. The most common is Indian ink in the LS. I've played with various things like Mini wax stains LS and other wood hardeners, I had good short term results but no idea on long term results( i'm a noob warning). There is a fair amount of info out there. Maybe a bunch here, I'll look at some of my book marks. Graham Potter has some video on colouring up dead wood.

 

[fourteener]

New Planting angle, smaller pot



There is potential to make the back the front and show off the live vein. Still thinking about it!!

 

[amkhalid]

View attachment 36144

There is potential to make the back the front and show off the live vein. Still thinking about it!!

Looks like a good improvement!

It it still in its winter colour or is that just an artifact of the photograph?

 

[fourteener]

Looks like a good improvement!

It it still in its winter colour or is that just an artifact of the photograph?

I repotted it a week ago and it was just thawed out. It has morning breath and no coffee and if we ever get any sun it will wake up. It looks better now(a week after this photo) than it did then. Spring is a long time coming this year.

 

[october]

Ya, they look pretty terrible in winter. Mine woke up about 4 weeks ago. That was something I was waiting for...It's like, ok, you can wake up any time now.. After it does you can say whew, made it..

What does the current back look like?

Rob

 

[fourteener]

Here's the back. Not cleaned up and foliage wired to the current front.

Any thoughts?

 

[october]

Both sides are nice. I think this is one of those situations so common in bonsai. One side has a better trunk, but all the branches look better from another angle. In this case, it is not an extreme one side or the other is better. I do like the live vein on the other side. However, the branches seem to naturally be better to work with from your chosen front. Well, there are worst things to deal with besides having 2 great fronts to chose from.

Rob

 

[MidMichBonsai]

I personally like the original front better. It is cleaner and I think the jins/deadwood looks its best this way. The back is a little busy for my taste and doesn't show off the deadwood as well. If you worked on this with Ryan, chances are good that his instincts were correct. He has a real knack for discovering and then accentuating the best elements of the material he is working on.

Either way...great tree! Congrats!