Some trees I'm working on...

JudyB said:

Boxwood are very peculiar and singular in their growth habits I've found. You sort of have to work with the tree as it presents itself for the most part. But you have certainly done well. Kudos. I had far too many trees at the time to do this one any justice. I think I was up near 75 trees at that point LOL.

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Only 75? LOL. If I count up everything I have in containers, including "project" trees (nursery stock, seedlings) I'm over 100. As a result, numerous things aren't getting the attention they deserve. I'm trying to rectify that, I've identified some trees that will just go into the landscape. Sold one this spring on facebook and have some others marked for sale. Have only acquired one new project this year. I'm working on it! But the National Exhibition is coming up...

Then there are the bunches of trees in the grow bed...help! LOL.

coh said:

Only 75? LOL. If I count up everything I have in containers, including "project" trees (nursery stock, seedlings) I'm over 100. As a result, numerous things aren't getting the attention they deserve. I'm trying to rectify that, I've identified some trees that will just go into the landscape. Sold one this spring on facebook and have some others marked for sale. Have only acquired one new project this year. I'm working on it! But the National Exhibition is coming up...

Then there are the bunches of trees in the grow bed...help! LOL.

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Time to drop the bottom 10. Once you start doing that and acquiring 1 for that 10 trade you may never look back. I didn't!

Updated photo of the black pine after decandling a couple of weeks ago. It doesn't look much different than the photo in post 1 but there are some subtle changes. Mainly, there are small shoots developing further back on many of the branches and I'm allowing them to grow...leading to a bit of a congested appearance. That will eventually change.

Going to have to do more thinning and expose some more of the trunk, still too many branches overall. No rush, though. Due for a repotting soon I think and I'll have to see if I can get it into a shallower pot.

Might do some needle thinning now that I look at the photo...

Grabbing some photos lately, here is one of a euonymus (dwarf burning bush) I've been working on for a few years. These are slow to develop because you generally only get one growth flush per season. I have seen euonymus in the landscape produce a second flush after defoliation by caterpillars, but haven't been brave enough to try that on a potted specimen. It's about 14" tall from the soil. Some areas (upper right in particular) are being allowed to grow longer to build up size in the sub trunks. May need another year or two of that but won't be able to tell for sure until the leaves drop.



Canopy is roughly the size I'm aiming for, though cleaned up a bit...perhaps like the virt below. Of course the mishmash of branching in the interior will be thinned out. One thing I don't yet know about is whether there is any kind of decent base hidden under the soil. Next repotting I'll have to dig down further and take a look.



Fall color from 2016...probably the main attraction of this species. Also produces cute little red fruit that hangs on well into the winter.

Great color.

LanceMac10 said:

Great color.

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Very dependable! Almost too red.

Found an older image of this tree. Turns out I actually purchased it in 2011 (!). It was a 30" tall shrub from a regular
garden center. It was cut down hard in spring 2012, then again in spring 2013 (just prior to this photo). Since then
I've been trying to develop sub trunks (or perhaps primary branches, your choice) off the main trunks. Slow going when
you only get the 1 flush per year.

That burning bush will be much better once you thin out the interior of unneeded branches. Thanks for sharing.

New JBP project tree from this spring. Took a chance on this one, it has obviously suffered a bit the past few years. Some lower branches have died and the growth from
the previous year or two was weak and infected with needle cast. The tree was on an automatic watering system and appeared over-watered, with all kinds of weeds
and muck (including liverwort) on the soil surface. However, when purchased in May, there were plenty of new shoots starting to grow and I thought the trunk was
interesting and that something could be made out of it. So it came home with me.

I don't have any before pics, but the first step was to clean off the top inch or so of muck and weeds and replace with fresh soil. I then kept it a lot drier (the fact that it
hasn't rained in the last 2 months helped with that). Then started fertilizing heavily. The tree is responding well and the new shoots are strong and healthy. I've been removing
old infected needles as they brown and treating with daconil every couple of weeks.

The plan is to grow it this year with no candle pruning at all. I hope to develop back budding on some of those longer branches, so there may be some needle thinning
(at least on bottoms of branches) to allow as much light inside as possible. Next spring it gets unpotted. I was told it was repotted recently but I need to see what the roots
and soil look like. We'll go from there. It may be allowed to run next year as well, then we can see what we have in terms of backbudding and start making decisions about
styling. I suspect a drop branch may be in order to replace the one that died, but we'll see.

Yes, I know the trunk has a straight section right in the middle as well as a large pruning scar

Chinese Quince I've had for a couple of years. Getting used to how it grows and responds to pruning. Repotted this spring, just trimmed back long extensions and did some leaf cutting in the upper areas a couple of days ago. Thinking next spring the long branches get cut back pretty hard to start building some structure. Not sure about final height...that thin apical extension may be removed in favor of a slightly shorter final tree as in the second (virtual) image.

May have to consider grafting a branch low since there appears to be a little bit of reverse taper in the base.

coh said:

Very dependable! Almost too red.

Found an older image of this tree. Turns out I actually purchased it in 2011 (!). It was a 30" tall shrub from a regular
garden center. It was cut down hard in spring 2012, then again in spring 2013 (just prior to this photo). Since then
I've been trying to develop sub trunks (or perhaps primary branches, your choice) off the main trunks. Slow going when
you only get the 1 flush per year.

View attachment 201470

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This is helpful to me. I picked up a nursery stock EAC this spring and repotted. I spent this year growing roots and building strength. Sadly, it looks like I'm going to lose my side branch but that might be for the best if I trunk chop in the spring. I'm getting scared to do that, though, because so far I've killed every single tree I've chopped!

Lots of great bonsai here!

Cable said:

This is helpful to me. I picked up a nursery stock EAC this spring and repotted. I spent this year growing roots and building strength. Sadly, it looks like I'm going to lose my side branch but that might be for the best if I trunk chop in the spring. I'm getting scared to do that, though, because so far I've killed every single tree I've chopped!

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If the tree is strong enough (and euonymus is pretty resilient), doing a trunk chop should not present any problems. I've done it. I also had one that was completely girdled by voles during winter storage. I figured it was dead but planted it in the yard and somehow, 3 years later, it is still alive...somehow (though the drought this summer may have finally done it in).

Did you post your tree in a thread somewhere? If so, let me know.

Great stuff coh. Thanks for taking the time to share.

coh said:

If the tree is strong enough (and euonymus is pretty resilient), doing a trunk chop should not present any problems. I've done it. I also had one that was completely girdled by voles during winter storage. I figured it was dead but planted it in the yard and somehow, 3 years later, it is still alive...somehow (though the drought this summer may have finally done it in).

Did you post your tree in a thread somewhere? If so, let me know.

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I did but it would have been with others. I need to start a thread for each tree. Well, they're not really trees, pre-trees. You know what I mean! lol. I'm going to try to get some current pics and do that.

Got some nice fall color going on right now.

1) Chinese quince (same tree pictured a few posts earlier). Big leaves. Need to start working on ramification
and leaf reduction next year.



2) Arakawa maple. Really vibrant this year. Working on a broom-type structure, most of the branches are still
in grow-out mode.



2) Arakawa maple, twin trunk. Also in grow-out mode. Different coloring on this one but that might partly be
due to different lighting (this one was taken indoors, the one above outdoors). I fused 2 cutting grown trees
at the base to produce this one.



Base of above tree, starting to bark up but taking its time! Unfortunately the two trunks are very similar in size
but that's what I had to work with. Hoping to allow one of them to grow more vigorously to put on size
compared to the other.

coh said:

Unfortunately the two trunks are very similar in size

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They're fine. There are millions,and I mean millions of double trunk trees in nature with identical size trunks. I see them every day at work.
Very nice Chris.
I love multi trunk trees.

M. Frary said:

They're fine. There are millions,and I mean millions of double trunk trees in nature with identical size trunks. I see them every day at work.
Very nice Chris.
I love multi trunk trees.

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Yeah, I agree to a point. Having the trunks be different sizes adds visual interest but it isn't an absolute necessity to me. They will be different heights and over time, the additional foliage mass on one (the taller one) will make it a bit thicker.

Very nice color!

Few more...

1) Shishigashira Japanese maple. This one I obtained as a standard grafted tree from a nursery. It had a bad graft
so I layered above the graft and just below the first large branch, aiming for a twin trunk style. Maybe should have
layered a little higher but could always do that down the road. Still some extra branches to remove but wanted to
get it strongly established on its own roots. Man, are these slow growers! I think the contrast between the red
foliage and green trunks is particularly beautiful this year.



2) Euonymus alatus. I've posted this one before. It looks kind of ragged because some areas are still being
allowed to grow out to build trunk/branch size. Might be due for some significant cut backs in the spring.
Heavy fruit load this year.



3) Viridis Japanese maple (I think). Won this in an auction at Bill Valavanis's last symposium (it was used as
a demo for grafting). It has a nasty base and I've been trying to ground layer it for 3 seasons now with no
luck (well, it might have rooted this time, I haven't checked). Another one that's just being allowed to grow
wild to try to encourage those new roots. If I can't root it within the next year or two it will probably just
go in the ground, but there is a decent trunk line hidden in there and I'd like to make it work. Interesting that
the 2 sides have quite different color, maybe I didn't rotate it enough during the summer.

Have you considered removing the lower branch/sub-trunk on the burning bush? You'd end up with a much more tree-like form rather than bush-like. I think it would give it a better sense of scale. Just an idea.