Carpinus betulus No.14 "Old Sam" after editing

Few days ago was about right time to do some root work on this tree. Since collection from wild I did not disturb them due to obvious reasons. Now it was safe in my opinion to do some necessary cuts to shorten roots. Two larger roots were shortened by few cm and tree was potted into same bowl for year or two. Crown was cleaned as well.  

Acer palmatum

Tree was edited and many unsuitable branches were cut out, mainly from top. Tree was already too tall, some branches quite leggy so hard pruning back was necessary to get better structure in the future. Now new leaves are on its way. Pictures with fresh foliage will follow soon. 

Prunus spinosa

Carpinus betulus No.3 "Gemini"

Tree was edited recently, you can see on one picture before in raw state. Some branches were shortened, no wire this time. If you look back on previous posts about this tree you will know I'm trying to build up completely new tree from second straight stump. It is several years already since second chop now. Initially during collecting tree was chopped too high. Now it is visible some structure of the trunks and branches is already built but it will require few more years to achieve credible result. Tree will stay in current pot due to horticultural reason mostly, I need very strong growth on second tree. I usually leave very long sacrifice branches on all trunks on secondary tree to gain maximum girth gain during the growing season.  

Before work 

Initial stage of the tree few weeks after it was collected in 2009

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.