Tilia cordata No.1

Tree was edited recently few branches were shortened. Now it is ready to flush leaves just in few days from now. It has typically very soft wood, so it is easy to wire even thicker branches. Some wire is already necessary so it will be done now or when leaves will harden a bit, depending on available time.   

Prunus spinosa with flowers

I have been waiting for last couple of days for this moment. Now it was time to take few pictures. I wanted to finish work on deadwood before flowering but I had not enough time. More carving will follow. White flowers on bright background are not particularly well visible. I made improvised dark background from blanket. Not great, but gives perspective on amount of flowers. 

Improvised dark background to enhance withe flowers. 

Few days ago. 

Spring 2010, just after collecting from wild. 

Fraxinus No.2

During weekend repotting session I was working with this ash. As vigorous as it is, it could have stayed in pot for at least one season. Even if after taking out from pot it is clearly visible pot was fully packed with fine fiber roots ( just remainder it is sitting in anorganic mix of Zeoilte and Teramol since it was collected, if there are people out there not believing in using modern substrates. I hope we do not have to prove it works fantastic anymore tough). Reason I was taking it out was removal of larger roots. This tree was potted initially into plastic bowl after collecting. Than it was repotted several years ago into this chinese pot. Being careful I was removing minimum amount of roots when fitting it into this pot. This obviously led to larger roots reaching very edge of the pot. Larger roots are problematic from several reasons. One is obviously aesthetical, it is generally better from design point of view, to have several smaller roots than one fat big root. Second reason is related to size of the pot, and effective volume of the roots. In small pot if you substitute one bigger roots by cutting it by mass of fiber roots it is much better for the tree. 

So, if you look on initial picture you see one of those large roots ending just on periphery of the pot. This root was shortened significantly, as was two others on other side of the root ball. Edges of the roots were covered with moss to keep them wet, this will hopefully help in development of the new fiber roots at cuts. 

Now tree is sitting in same pot, new one for this tree is in production phase already. Since removed roots was forcing tree into certain position, now it was possible to rotate the tree to achieve better front. Top of the crown will be edited, when tree start to show its vigor after few weeks from now. 

Tilia cordata No.2

Spring pruning and crown editing was done on this linden recently. This tree is not yamadori as most of my trees. It is from seedling from nursery. It was field grown for several years in garden of my relatives far from my hometown. Therefore it was edited in the ground just few time a year. Leggy branches and large internodes resulting in rather large scars after cutting, are result of such approach. On one hand huge mass of foliage grown during the season resulted in nice gains in girth of trunk and branches. On the other hand structure is far from ideal yet, and nebari is not good enough. For now some major edits were done in crown, it will be further edited later this year. New nebari will be developed by air layering this year or next year.

You can see long internodes lacking tapering. This kind of branch is hard to correct. I guess it is better to cut it back and start over from lower spot if this is possible. With Linden it is possible for sure, it is strong grower, it creates a lot of back buds on the branches on old wood.  

Cuts could look big now but they will heal quite well and quickly on linden. I let them dry and carve it with power tools later. 

Detail on largest lower branch which was biggest problem. I know it was mistake to let it grow so much. But it is OK, one have to admit it and try to correct it as soon as possible. Many potentially good bonsai trees looks not good because we tend to be too attached to parts of tree. We are afraid to cut. If you are afraid to cut deep you are gonna have big trouble in developing decent structure. 

Picture of the tree from autumn last year. Problematic low brache is still thereon bottom right side. 

Cornus mas No.3 "Attila"

I was working on this Cornus mas recently since it was just about right time. Actually it was not, it was bit too late. I neglected the tree last year and did just quick trimming several times. No wiring was done since I guess 2015. It resulted in too straight sections in crown and by now it was basically impossible to bent those sections. Secondly internodes were way too long. Tree started to look decently with foliage but without foliage structure of the crown was not what it should look like. As bad as it was, it had one advantage, a lot of shoots with foliage served as sacrifice branches helping certain trunk section to gain girth. Now many end parts of the branches were removed, those sections which were able to bend were wired. Now crown has somewhat triangular shape which is just coincidence. It will be regrown and final crown will hopefully be wide oval shape. We will see. 

Yeah, it was time to give this little tree decent name. Since tree was collected in Hungary together with my Hungarian friends I decided I will call it with one of the most typical Hungarian name - Attila. Post with some more pictures from tree history could be found here. 

Detail of the small trunk on side. Tree has holes and natural sharis. Big wound above natural hole is after the branch I removed now. I kept it there initially in 2012. Then later when thinking about future shape and structure of the crown I decided I do not want it there. But it was thick already. So I thought about using method of partial cutting it with saw and let branch heal wound with callus. Unfortunately it was not working as I was expecting and I lost patience with it. So it is gone. And tree has another scar. So be it. 

Summer, 2015 or 2016

Few weeks after it was collected, 2012

Carpinus betulus "Rusnak"

During last weekend repotting session I decided to repot this hornbeam. There have been several reasons for doing it. Personally I do not think it is good to repot trees regularly, nor on annual basis. Tree needs repotting when it is rootbound, due to aesthetic reasons, or health issues. When you are using substrate which is not decomposing in your area then you can repot fairly rarely. Which is advantage, since tree after repotting needs some time to find its balance again which could be from few months to few years.

So my reasons here were that I needed to do some major root work here. When tree was repotted for the first time from plastic bowl into this pot it was in March 2014. At that time I was afraid to do too much root work in one step. Since it was first intervention into roots since collecting in 2009, I was removing big parts of old heavy soil. Some roots were worked back then but it was obviously not enough to fit into reasonably small pot in the future. Since some time ago I try to work with trees more carefully to avoid losing them due to my impatience. 

As you can see on older pictures some of the major roots were so lone they were reaching edge of the pot. So few centimeters reduction is needed. One of the roots is also moving slightly upwards from horizontal level of the soil as you can see. So I chose two roots to be shortened, one which was moving upwards and, one on opposite side. One again, most probably it is not enough for final design, but patience and survivability of the tree is absolute key here. Other roots could be shortened during next repotting and those worked this year could be even more shortened in couple of years from now when everything will be allright. By than more fiber roots will hopefully emerge closer to center of the trunk base. 

Some parts of the roots from under the trunk center was also removed and residues of old soil from collecting place was removed. As much as I try to avoid washing out soil from the roots, I could not do it this time without water, but just locally on on spots where old clay soil was left. I have found one little rock between the roots. You can see it next to pot on turntable. I will keep it for a while to have memory on collecting place.   

Now tree sits in the pot just a little bit lower and two removed roots allowed tree being turned into little bit better position. But in any case I try to make the tree look good from all sides. Some of them are obviously better than others. 

Fairly complex post about history with a lot of pictures could be found here. 

Ass took out from pot. Before root work. 

cut on root is made between two small roots each one on side of the root to prevent possible failure of whole root. 

Ingredients for my substrate mix, Zeolite 4-8mm, Terramol 3-6 mm, white peat, Osmocote 3-6 months. I have used 1:1 Zeolite terramol, added abut 20% rough peat and fair amount of fertiliser.  

Cornus mas "Vesna"

When it is +15°C outside, it is Friday afternoon during the middle of the March , sun is shining again, the first flowers are out there and bees are hard working on the new batch of fresh honey and I know things are as they should be. Enjoy your weekend.