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  1. Zach Smith

    Mutant Crape Myrtle

    Needs pruning and pinching for leaf-size reduction, Carol. It's just a "feature" of crapes and many other species.
  2. Zach Smith

    My trees aren’t growing!

    My s My pleasure. Happy live oak!
  3. Zach Smith

    Do Oriental Sweetgum Air Layer Well?

    I've never tried air layering Sweetgum, but it's worth noting that they produce fibrous roots very nicely in a pot. I mention this because you will virtually never lift one that has any appreciable fibrous root volume near the trunk.
  4. Zach Smith

    Chinese Elm with exposed roots

    Go with the largest and deepest pot you can for strongest growth - if you can, of course. Good luck with it!
  5. Zach Smith

    Chinese Elm with exposed roots

    Pull it out and put it in the ground, let it grow wild two or three years, then see what you have to work with. You're putting way too much design thought into this tree given its size and current form.
  6. Zach Smith

    Dug Up Wisteria

    First of all, you will have to work hard to kill this vine. Let it grow out, don't love it too much, then next summer reassess what you have. Wisterias are resistant to training, but once you figure out what they want to do you can go with their flow and make something nice out of them. The...
  7. Zach Smith

    weird elm neighbor was discarding. Any hope?

    A couple of the larger leaves had the classic American elm shape, terminating in an elongated point with asymmetric edges. Also too big for Chinese elm. White bark also comes early on American elm, eventually getting raggedy-shredded looking. Given the size and apparent age, if it were...
  8. Zach Smith

    weird elm neighbor was discarding. Any hope?

    Looks like an American elm. Great species for bonsai, underutilized.
  9. Zach Smith

    New acquisition-1: bald cypress

    This specimen should terminate at about half its current height. So you can plan your air layer accordingly. I don't have any experience with layering BC, as I have no need to, but I'm sure someone here has done so successfully.
  10. Zach Smith

    Would you chop yet? - Crabapple

    You have to decide what is most important to you in your bonsai. If it is thick trunks with no chop scars, then plan on a 20-30 year timeframe to end up with large trees featuring thick trunks (3" or better) with great branch structures and fine ramification. Building a trunk with repeated...
  11. Zach Smith

    Would you chop yet? - Crabapple

    What Brian said, just be sure you wait years. It'll take about three before the tree really takes off (first year sleep, second year creep, third year leap). In the meantime, get a lot more trees so you leave this one alone and don't succumb to the temptation to love it a lot.
  12. Zach Smith

    12 Years In...

    Jerry, it really is the journey. If you had a perfect tree sitting on your bench, the odds are pretty high that after a few years you'd walk by it and not even notice it that much. But the ones you're trying to whip into shape, that's where your attention goes. Sure, it's nice to have nice...
  13. Zach Smith

    Water Oak

    I like that tool on the left-hand side of the bench. No nonsense from those trees! :cool:
  14. Zach Smith

    Overwintering baby BC in VA

    Sounds like you've got a plan. BC seeds do germinate at pretty near 100%, so that should leave you with plenty to work on down the road. Good luck with them!
  15. Zach Smith

    Overwintering baby BC in VA

    One thing to bear in mind about any trees grown from seed, there is a certainly mortality rate that tends to take the weaker ones out over the first few years of growth. They look fine, you treat them the same way as the others, but you lose one here and there for no apparent reason. It's just...
  16. Zach Smith

    American Beech Yamadori

    I would recommend lifting before the buds swell. With American beech I think you have a bigger window during winter - years ago I collected one in December and it came through fine. But my usual timing is January through March.
  17. Zach Smith

    American Beech Yamadori

    No big deal, when I first started out I tried my best to lug an acre of dirt home with each tree. I figured out pretty quickly that there weren't any feeder roots there anyway, and if I left the lateral roots too long I have to chop them again to get the tree in a bonsai pot. Now I do it the...
  18. Zach Smith

    American Beech Yamadori

    With due respect, you don't need feeder roots when collecting American beech (or pretty much any North American native deciduous tree I can think of). The tree will gladly produce them from the larger lateral roots if you collect the tree at the right time. Beech has a very high success rate...
  19. Zach Smith

    American Beech Yamadori

    You need to bag this tree immediately (use one or more of those clear produce bags from the grocery store). If you don't, all of the moisture in the trunk will transpire out of the leaves and you've got a surely dead tree on your hands. The bag will keep the leaves under high humidity, and...
  20. Zach Smith

    Indoor Mulberry Chinese Elm Dwarf Pomegranate and more

    These young trees need to go outside immediately! The foliage is yellowing; that is not a sign of health.
  21. Zach Smith

    Effects of Fertilizer vs Compost vs Raw Manure?

    If we consider a tree growing in nature, no one comes along and dumps a load of ammonium nitrate around the base so the tree can get the nitrogen it needs; rather, this comes from the microbial decomposition of leaf mold and rain-borne nitrogen from the atmosphere, providing to the growing tree...
  22. Zach Smith

    Bonsai terminology...!?

    He just means root-pruning and repotting.
  23. Zach Smith

    American hornbeam branch die off help

    Not sure if this applies to your situation, but in spring I often see on my big hornbeam what looks like flagging of the new growth foliage at the tips of the branches even though I know there's no lack of water, soil drains, etc. This doesn't persist, and I think it may have to do with low...
  24. Zach Smith

    Ideas on what to do with ugly trunk

    No, use the branch above your circle as the new leader. Wire it up and give it a little movement. Make it your new leader. Completely chop off everything above that. Ficuses root so easily you should be able to root the whole upper trunk portion (be sure to cover it all with a clear produce...
  25. Zach Smith

    Ideas on what to do with ugly trunk

    Considering the time of year, you may be able to move this tree in a whole new better direction. Chop the trunk just above where the smaller low V is (root what you chop off) and wire it to give some movement. This will be your new trunk line. Then pull the tree from the pot and cut roots off...
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