My first yamadori.

I'm not sure how much hope I have for this Aleppo Pine as bonsai material. I'm making way on my property for an Olive orchard and this had to come up. It was about 5ft before I cropped it. It now is about 2.5ft from the base of the trunk to the to branch. Am I wasting my time trying to shape this? Love to hear some feedback. TIA.

google images for Aleppo pine + bonsai, I know there are some examples of Aleppo pine being used for bonsai. As a species for bonsai the natural growth pattern of the Aleppo pine creates some unique difficulties. The Aleppo will frequently revert to juvenile foliage when pruned or otherwise stressed. The mature needle foliage the needles are long and twisted, both are less than ideal traits for bonsai. But this pine has been used. There are a number of tricks you will have to learn to manage an Aleppo pine beyond the normal care for most pine species. I have never owned one, so someone else will have to give you details.

I would look for a trunk that has bends and curves closer to the roots than 2 feet. But your tree has nice bark, a sign of age. There are things you can do. With some creative carving, you can make your tree look like it was broken by wind, or lightning, to explain the sudden broken top.

Big fat literati.

Has some potential. Is yard tree not Yamadori. Is not wild aged tree collected from mountain.

Olive!

Welcome to Crazy!

Sorce

Thanks for the feedback gentleman! Leo, I definitely noticed the juvenile growth since I've cut the upper portion of the tree last year around early September. I was hoping for some back budding lower on the trunk, but no such luck yet. It's only been a fees days since I dug it up so I'm letting it settle for how long? A year or two? I definitely see myself carving on that hefty trunk. Not sure how to achieve a "lightning strike" effect but love the idea of it! And I have always like the bunjin/literati style. I've just never seen one this thick or this straight. The furrowing on the bark is really what drew me to the tree. And I've always wanted a monster sized bonsai. I feel like I have my work cut out for me on this being my first attempt. And Potawatomi, I apologize... yard tree. ?

Look up fractal lichtenberg, it uses High voltage AC current. I'm very interested in this idea, and would love to give it a try one day.

Dorky_gearhead said:

Look up fractal lichtenberg, it uses High voltage AC current. I'm very interested in this idea, and would love to give it a try one day.

Click to expand...

I looked it up and on the page I went to was pleased to see the guy compared the process of making those fractal designs on wood to growing a bonsai tree! He said it's like the electricity wants to do one thing and you want it to do another. It's the same with bonsai.

You could probably place some kind of wire or metal shavings to force the angry pixies (Ave terminology) to travel in the direction you want. Actually a wet string would probably work pretty well!

I was just thinking a chisel and a blowtorch. Haha. But I've seen that technique on wood before but never live trees. From a lot of the photos I've seen on google the wood on branches and trunks never seem very burned. Just broken and stripped of bark.

Whats happening is, as the bolt travels down the tree it's vaporizing the water in the tree. Its basically a steam explosion via electricity... roughly 1.1 gigawatts... lol.

We have a lot of wild fires where I live in eastern San Diego county. It's part of the ecosystem around here. Thinking that it should be part of the creation of this tree? My whole neighborhood burned in the witch creek fires in 2008. Our house was one of the only ones the survive. Created a lot of cool looking trees in the area as many have survived despite heavy fire damage. Is fire often implemented in the creation of bonsai? I've already noticed new growth since potted just over a week ago. Seems to be a pretty sturdy tree.

I built a lichtenberg wood burner over the winter. It's been fun to play with.

Do you mind showing pictures of your setup?

This was during the build. The transformer was from a microwave. I wired in a switch and also wired in a foot pedal. Hopefully if I get zapped I fall off the pedal before it kills me

Eek kinda scary, but it's better to have a dead man switch that kills the power, rather than having a dead man!

I just make sure my heads on straight before I play with it

Wow! Yea I probably won't be attempting that but is like to see it work. And hopefully you won't go viral by shocking the $**+ out of yourself! But back to the tree in question. There's certainly a lot of time before I can even begin work on it. I plan on removing bark and wood in a "S" pattern from the base of the main cut following down to the top of the root base. Gradually narrowing as is follows down the trunk. Hoping to achive sone movement in that log of a trunk as the wound heals. The trunk is about 4in thick and about 18in to the base of the main branch. I also think I'm going to try and split the trunk slightly. I'm hoping that I can eventually get some budding on the opposite side of the main branch. It's finally winter here we've been having nights in the high twenties low thirties(wreaked havoc on my adeniums). So far the tree seems to be healthy. Just some slight yellowing around the tips of the needles. Looking forward to what this mat become. Challenges and all.

@Simple_Man81
I live in zone 5, between Chicago and Milwaukee, obviously your California climate has a much, much longer growing season. So how long to leave it recover? Use your judgement, in my climate I think I would need to leave it 3 to 5 years, but you have better conditions, I would guess at least 2 years, not less. You want to give all those new buds and new roots time to form cellulose and lignin, they need to become woody to be able to resist vibration, jostling, and other accidents and unplanned movements that will happen when working on the tree. Warning, carving the tree with power tools will cause the trunk to vibrate, which will travel down to the roots. If the tree is not firmly rooted in, so by hand you can not wiggle the trunk, the roots will get broken by the vibrations of using power tools, die grinders and those ''mini chainsaw'' looking things cause the most vibration. I only do power tool carving in middle of winter while my soil is frozen rock solid. If the soil starts to thaw, I put it back outside to freeze again. You will have to wait until the tree has firmly filled the pot with roots, at least 2 or more years from now, before you use power tools.

I realize your tree was chosen because ''it was there'', and indeed you can with skilled carving, make an interesting tree. I suggest while you are waiting for this one to establish, find dead logs, about the same size as your tree and practice with your power tools, see if you can create the types of images were talking about. I have seen some decent trees ruined by their owner making their very first attempt at carving to carve their prized tree. Carving takes practice, best time to start is now.

I would also pick up Japanese Black pine seed or seedlings, in your climate you can create some decent trees from scratch in 5 to 10 years. Also, look around your area, some of the burned trees and brush, you might find some interesting trunks with cool fire damage. Some of the oaks and junipers and sagebrush could work out well.

Sagebrush? Wow I never considered that!