American Hornbeam

faker

Mame
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Starting a thread to track progress of the american hornbeam I got a few years ago. It's the first tree I've put into an actual (albeit cheap) bonsai pot.

Current goals:
- Thicken middle portion of the trunk to improve taper
- Continue developing branching, particularly in the empty space on left and on the entire right side to improve balance
- develop apex
- heal scars

Would love some feedback.

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Maloghurst

Chumono
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Starting a thread to track progress of the american hornbeam I got a few years ago. It's the first tree I've put into an actual (albeit cheap) bonsai pot.

Current goals:
- Thicken middle portion of the trunk to improve taper
- Continue developing branching, particularly in the empty space on left and on the entire right side to improve balance
- develop apex
- heal scars

Would love some feedback.

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Nice tree and great trunk. That sinuous trunk is beautiful. Maybe another year or two on the first section of leader after the main trunk would have been good?
I love the thickness of the first branch. Great job!
Maybe thread grafting in the future?
Cool tree.
 

Ohmy222

Shohin
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Beautiful tree. Weird that the hornbeam around me have much smaller leaves.
 

faker

Mame
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Beautiful tree. Weird that the hornbeam around me have much smaller leaves.
Thanks. I'm hoping with refinement and maybe defoliation down the line they'll reduce a bit better because it definitely has some large leaves for it's current size.

Back with a beaut!

What's the old pot, concrete?

Looks cool!

Sorce

It was just in a plastic pot before, but putting a tree into a ceramic bonsai pot for the first time felt a bit symbolic!
 

BobbyLane

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Looks good, sounds like you have it all planned out. i like the angular movement youre getting in the branches.
the leaves will definitely get smaller over time.
 

BobbyLane

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some of the American hornbeams look a little lighter brown than the European counter part. this could pass for a korean hornbeam. i wonder why we dont see a lot more of these.
 

faker

Mame
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Do you still have it, how much has it developed since the last update?
I do! Development has been coming along, but it always seems to be a delicate balance between ramification and die back. Going to do some fall work on it and will post updated pics in the next few weeks.
 

faker

Mame
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Some fall color pics before work started:
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I grew out two sacrifice branches to help thicken the upper trunk that have given it a bit of an insect antenna appearance before cutback...
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After cutback without wire, which I think it still needs on a few branches. I think I'm going to have to make some decisions to develop the apex this year. I may have spent too many years leaving myself two options, and I'll probably have to thread graft some branches to fill space if I remove either one. I don't hate the split apex aesthetically, so we'll see. Would love to hear opinions there. Also needs to go into a better pot at some point.

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BobbyLane

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By split apex im not sure if you mean where the two branches fork on the primary leader or the second leader here coming from the front at the top. I would definitely leave this one ive painted and have it veering off to the right so its more of a branch than a second leader. I can see that apart from the first left branch, everything else seems to come from the back. If you are going to graft I think the best reason for that is to have one or two coming from the front of the trunk on the right hand side.
you currently have enough on the tree and I dont see any need to create the 'perfect' branch structure. Yeh at some point I may look at snipping one of the branch forks on the primary leader to a thinner shoot a little back.
 

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czaczaja

Shohin
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Amazing ramification on that boy! Awesome taper
 
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