5 Year Native Tree Challenge: BeepBeep's Quaking Aspen

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So I've started bonsai this year back in March. My second tree I bought is a quaking aspen. It sat around until I decided to wire it up (May 5th)

Note: I bought another aspen last week, so I might do another thread. The new one is a single 6' tall tree and has at least 4 smaller saplings around the base. I hope I can use a few for this challenge unless they're suckers... prob are...
 

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After 3 weeks of wiring (May 28th), I noticed the wire was starting to bite in. I figured, "Why not let it bite in a lot to see what it does"

Then many more weeks later (July 17) I checked it out again, and decided it that the wire had bitten in plenty, so removed it the next day
 

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And then my dog decided she wanted a taste of aspen (Aug 4th). It was tied to her collar for 20min as punishment, drug around the yard. "You really want the aspen, then you can wear it!" I didn't care about sweeping up the strewn about potting soil later

I then threw to the side to die before throwing it away. I got the sudden urge to say, "You know what? Screw it! I'm going to see if it'll come back. They're vigorous, right? It's not taking up space. And if it dies, I'm only out $10." So threw it back in it's pot, with normal potting soil, soaked it, and put it to the side

... Where she decided it was time for another trunk chop!!! Are you kidding me?! (Aug 8th) So it was put behind the big pot where she really couldn't get to it, hoping it would somehow make it
 

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Well what do you know, 6 days after the initial chomping, I saw a bud breaking! (Aug 10th)

And then I saw more tiny leaves and 2 more buds breaking. And a few at the root flare
 

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unless they're suckers...
What we call suckers are the aspen's way of colonizing their space. They are a good thing and would make your aspen look natural.

I use portable kennels to keep my dogs out of my bonsai. Why put temptation in front of perfectly good dogs?
 
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So now this is how Aspen the Chewed sits as of last night (Aug 17th). A pretty nice shoot, and some smaller leaves coming on out

New plan is to flame broil the sweet jin I got going and the story for this tree will be a lightning strike

I may change the angle later. Would prob look better having the jin straight up, or mostly straight up

Recently threw some fertilizer in there. I hope to push a lot of new growth before our first freeze around beginning of Nov. It stays pretty warm into Oct, so I hope it has enough time to really push that new growth then harden off before starting dormancy. Time will tell how this little guy pulls through
 

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What we call suckers are the aspen's way of colonizing their space. They are a good thing and would make your aspen look natural.
Hmm, this gives me a pretty nice idea for the aspen I just bought then. One nice sized tree with some smaller ones around it

I'll prob post a new thread for that one
 
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I fertilized with 7-7-7 a few weeks ago and it didn’t go so hot. Juniper going downhill, 6 mesquites got mad (3 are recovering and 2 are prob toast), a boxwood isn’t too great, lost a Mondell pine, and my last Mondell appears close behind…

… And the aspen seems to not have faired well either

I’ll keep tabs if it decides to send out shoots or if it’s kaputt
 

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Yaaah, it never recovered. I read for aspens, once the limbs go black, they’re done. I scratched the base and the bark just sloughed off, so ripped it all off just because. You can see how deep the wire cut in

So on Sun (11/28), I decided to throw it out. I wanted to see how the roots were doing or what lateral shoots would look like, so shook the soil off. Ended up seeing some small shoots off the tap root. Ok, experiment time. Ripped the trunk off. Took off any roots that looked bad, left some finer stuff closer to the tap, and planted it flat with the shoots pointing up

Now we wait until spring to see what it does
 

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