As I wrote in one of my previous posts I caught collecting bug last spring and had an irresistible feeling I haven't collected enough trees in the last few years. I thought I have enough space for a few new projects, which obviously proved terribly wrong. Nevertheless, I managed to bring a few new trees last year.
In desperate attempt to make my shelves look decent this spring, I was repotting everything that was possible to be repotted into ceramic pots from plastic bowls. So did I with two trees on pictures below. Both were collected in March 2018. Both were very vigorous so I repotted them. Not that I'm recommending it as a standard approach with freshly collected trees. It is still better to wait 2-3 seasons and than disturb trees again. In this case, trees were Prunus mahleb and second is Elm, which is both vigorous growers. I had almost no doubt they will do just fine.
For mahleb, I see its future with a round, rather wide crown, with upward branches. Trunks need to be carved for sure. I hope the tree will create nice even nebari all around the trunk.
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| March 2019 after repotting |
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| March 2019 after repotting |
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| April 2019 |
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| April 2019 |
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| Summer 2018, a few months after collecting from wild |
The second project is Elm. Also with strong roots, already nice even distribution. Even if it was not true they tend to improve nebari themselves by growing a lot of roos on all sides. I decided this will be traditional (!!!) broom project. I know, I know what you are thinking. That I'm not doing a lot of traditional shit and so on. But As I was looking at the trunk I saw it there, I promise. I'm following one interesting thread on BonsaiNut about crating broom and I think I can try to do it along these lines. It will be extremely challenging, and it will take two decades to bear fruit but I'm going to give it a try. Now, tree pushed a lot of growth from the cut in late spring, I cut off absolutely nothing. It pushed two branches from below the cut but I should have removed them but was not sure where I'm going with it. And those two branches were there much earlier than growth on cut. So, now everything is cleared, all excess growth was cut out and only 5-6 upward shots were left. They were shortened on two-three buds in March during repotting. Month later growth is strong again many new shoots emerged. I will leave it like it is to let the tree gain more strength after the repotting stress and thin out branches in about month time.
Idú jak píla :)
ReplyDeleteRe elm - I think that you will get a very reasonable shape within less a decade.
ReplyDeleteBecause of the inclination of the trunk it will not be a traditional broom anyway, don't worry:)
Do you consider any air layer to get rid of the yamadori roots?
Vlad, those roots are not so big and I have feeling they are in a proportion to the trunk size. As I wrote earlier somewhere, I have a feeling elms ten to self improve nebari with creating abundant new roots at the base. So I will see how it will look like. Now tree is about 2 cm than it will be finally to keep roots wet after repotting. But I will lift or uncover it in some time in the future.
DeleteRegarding inclination, that was my initial worry but there are some inclined even if not that many. If it will be only flaw of the tree than I will take it. Funny enough I was collecting it with intention of having straight trunk for broom. Then in the garden when potting it it showed it is not that straight. Nevermind, I have location where I can collect hundred straight š inch trunks for experiments. Just garden is not so big.