Q&A: How to build a big Elm? Spruce care. Ash as bonsai. Growing in boxe...

Ulmus

In wake of the insufficient amount of good news, I went out to the garden to take a few autumn shots of trees. Instead of screaming from my window form helplessness, I'm posting it. Stay strong, be clever and take care of yourself. We shall overcome. 

Ulmus

Ulmus

Ulmus with first signs of upcoming autumn

Ulmus

After first cut back.

A couple of new projects

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. 

March 2019 after repotting

March 2019 after repotting

April 2019

April 2019

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.  

Ulmus

Elm was repotted into its first ceramic pot in March. Now pushing new growth. Collected from the wild in 2013, still a long way to go. 

Ulmus

I would like to share a few pictures of this elm. Leaves on sacrifice branch started to yellow and fall off. It was time to cut it off. 

Branch was about 2 m long as you can see it standing behind the tree

Winners of the thickness contest are Mimo and Vlad. Send me your pictures if you like to apply for the promised reward. 

Always try to keep branches close to the potential cutting point so you have some to fall back to. It is much more certain the tree will not drop the branch after cutting back. In case I would not have this branch there I would make the removing in the spring.