Maros Bonsai Blog: bonsai z Prirody

Showing posts with label bonsai z Prirody. Show all posts

Prunus spinosa No.2 with emerging foliage

Prunus spinosa with emerging foliage and residues of flowers. Details of the deadwood created with frost spray technique. Looks decently old to me.

Prunus spinosa No.1

Let me show you a few quick pictures of this sloe. It is the tree I collected myself back in 2009, ten years ago. I kept in my garden for a while but then I gave it to my friend Vincent. He was working on developing the tree for a few years until he suddenly passed. The tree then found its way back to my garden and I started to work on it again.

It was repotted into a larger ceramic pot to strengthen a bit. During this spring old pot was broken so it was substituted with a new one. Few guy wires were applied and the tree was left on its own devices. In spring it produced a couple of flowers, unfortunately, I did no pictures back then.

The cherry on the picture is last of three grown on the same spot. Hope for much more flowers next spring. The tree had 3 large roots going towards one end of the pot. One of them was cut off during spring repotting. Another one will be cut off next spring probably. The tree needs much smaller roots. I'm happy with the structure of the smaller crown and only minor wiring is necessary there. On lager trunk, there is much more work to be done. Top of the lager crown was cut off in summer. A new leader is growing there, you can see small purple branchlet on top. It will be wired into position and let grow next year.

September 2019

July 2018

October 2010

Prunus spinosa

Prunus spinosa after repotting into an oval pot. Pot possibly could have been bit smaller but couldn't find the better fit in my pot collection. Flowers expected in a few days.

Prunus spinosa

Let me tell you few words about this sloe. Since deadwood was not anywhere close to being finished I was working on it during the winter. It was carved all the way up to where live parts of the trunks were starting. I was trying to hollow the trunk from inside, give some structure to the top with some detailed carving. The surface was then burned with little flame as well. For some time I wanted to try a technique I was reading about from fellow bonsai artists. I bought can of freezing gas which is able to cool the surface of material down to -40°C. I soaked the cloth with water, wrapped a wet cloth around the deadwood and let it soak for few hours. Then, after removing it I was applying gas from the can. I repeated the process several times. Honestly, I was expecting more from it. I will most probably apply it few more times and I will see. Anyway, I think weather during next couple of seasons will give better results on the final appearance of the structure of the deadwood.

The tree was then left to recover after the winter. During repotting season in March tree was repotted, unfortunately, only back to same pot since there was no other suitable at that time. The tree was just turned by 45° in the pot to achieve better front.

During the repotting, I found that tree after some 8 or so years in the pot does not have any reasonable nebari as expected and generally roots were far from perfect. Since last repotting tree created one long root which circulated around the perimeter of the pot one and half times and feather roots were on the end. I cut that strange roots off and hoped all the rest of the root mass closer to the trunk will keep the tree alive.

After a couple of months, the tree is still doing well so it seems it made it. Fact is it produced almost no flowers this year, compared to last few years when it was flowering like crazy it was kind of unusual.

Maybe it is a result of repotting or winter weather, I don't know. I will see how it will do next spring. I hope to have a lot of flowers again.