A few of my future alder raft projects

[berzerkules]

I collected a bunch of little alders last year. It was my first year so I dug a lot of little insignificant stuff to see how they responded. I also did some basic wiring practice on them to get comfortable and figure out how much movement I could get with alder before it was too much. Just a beginner messing around in the yard with no guidance besides what I could find on the internet. Come this spring I didn't really like some of them but they survived collection, wiring and winter so I wasn't going to trash them. Instead I repotted some laying down close to horizontal. I haven't started trying to root the trunks like a raft yet. It will probably be years until I get to that point. I'm just growing them out and playing with them for now.

They are kind of messy and difficult to take pictures of so I'll only post a few of them. I have like 7 or 8 of these alders I potted horizontal.

Biggest one first I guess. Not much to look at but it's happy and healthy.



This is one of the alders that gave me the idea to start growing them for rafts since it had that little cork screw at the base of the trunk



This was the other one that gave me the idea to try to make rafts in the future.




This was just victim #4



Just some young little trees, not very interesting yet but I wanted to keep track of one of my many projects.

 

[BobbyLane]

Snap! I laid down a hornbeam yest with a raft in mind. Rafts have grown on me recently.
Im sure you can get more movement in with thicker wire or doubling up wire. to make more convincing movement you want to try to make a bend/curve at each node or branch junction on deciduous trees. its not about just bending randomly like i see so many doing. that doesnt look real, but contrived.
straight sections more than say an inch long are not very desirable, especially when theres the chance you can get movement there. think angular, with curves/bends how i said and changes of direction.

 

[BobbyLane]

I was able to get movement into this Birch trunk even tho it had begun to thicken

 

[berzerkules]

Snap! I laid down a hornbeam yest with a raft in mind. Rafts have grown on me recently.
Im sure you can get more movement in with thicker wire or doubling up wire. to make more convincing movement you want to try to make a bend/curve at each node or branch junction on deciduous trees. its not about just bending randomly like i see so many doing. that doesnt look real, but contrived.
straight sections more than say an inch long are not very desirable, especially when theres the chance you can get movement there. think angular, with curves/bends how i said and changes of direction.

I almost never see rafts, there is probably a good reason but I'll give it a go anyway. I need to get more wire soon, 3mm aluminum is the biggest I have right now and its running low. I put the little bends in the trunks last year when I just started so I had no idea what I was doing, I still don't, just winging it up here. Right now everything is still small and will need to fatten up if it's ever going to look convincing so I'm not sure what's there will stay long term. I was more concerned with getting the roots established in the right direction for a raft and just letting it go for now.

 

[BobbyLane]

I almost never see rafts, there is probably a good reason but I'll give it a go anyway. I need to get more wire soon, 3mm aluminum is the biggest I have right now and its running low. I put the little bends in the trunks last year when I just started so I had no idea what I was doing, I still don't, just winging it up here. Right now everything is still small and will need to fatten up if it's ever going to look convincing so I'm not sure what's there will stay long term. I was more concerned with getting the roots established in the right direction for a raft and just letting it go for now.

sure, my comments were more for future reference. fwiw i begin starting movement early in a branches life as its much easier then, this is what i mean about bends at each junction, this is a hornbeam branch.
good luck