Yamadori Hawthorn beginnings - WWYD?

[SgtPilko]

Hey folks,

I've had this healthy yamadori hawthorn (Cratageus Monogyna) from Harry Harrington sitting on the bench for about 2yrs now, which has not really been moving fwd while I slowly experiment and work out a design. I find the material quite tricky, there is obvious appeal in the deadwood and craggy bark, but any chosen front has a lot of sacrifices of other features.

Despite hard cutbacks each year branches never seem to bud where I need them - there are two spots one high and one low where all the branches want to sprout. They've also tended to throw long internodes and get very coarse, which makes the slim and somewhat straight trunk look worse.

I've previously left a couple of branches in these spots to develop but I am considering a full reset this year - chop almost everything off, thread graft branches exactly where I need them, remove deadwood branch up top to help taper, carve and connect some deadwood areas for taper and carve sabamiki if old branch spots won't heal.

Any thoughts on this approach? Any solutions I'm missing? Crappy sketch with proposed design down below alongside some pics of the past couple of years!

 

[yashu]

I think if this were mine and I had the goals you mentioned I would be trying to boost growth as much as possible. To that end a bigger pot or better yet a pond basket or box for a few years and just let it run. It’s a good trunk and it sounds like you just want to create some more options for yourself. If you have the space, putting it in the ground could also be beneficial. Keep in mind that at this point it’s still just a trunk so refinement is still some time away.

 

[SgtPilko]

I think if this were mine and I had the goals you mentioned I would be trying to boost growth as much as possible. To that end a bigger pot or better yet a pond basket or box for a few years and just let it run. It’s a good trunk and it sounds like you just want to create some more options for yourself. If you have the space, putting it in the ground could also be beneficial. Keep in mind that at this point it’s still just a trunk so refinement is still some time away.

Thanks Yashu. I've let it grow and fed hard previously, its had more twigs than this the past couple of years but unfortunately they are always at the same couple of latitudes with huge gaps, so i just don't trust that any good options are going to occur without a bit more intervention... Thats why I'm think of grafting in some better places. It is a yamadori recovered from the hills and trained for pot life now, so I'm not sure putting it back in field soil would be the best way fwd.

 

[AshleyMammal]

Do old hawthorn air layer readily? I’d never normally advocate chopping such an old trunk but in theory you could get two ancient and powerful trunks… Just something for consideration!