A Taiwanese Something-or-other

grouper52

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Well, finally my computer was returned to me, "repaired" I suppose, but missing lots of key software and such, and I spent about a week getting it back - only doing so after taking names as a preliminary to filing a police report, and then the last 2 1/2 days getting it semi-functional with almost constant communication via chat and phone with apple support geeks. The story is too traumatic to retell in detail, but the soothing balm in all this is that I can process and post photos of all the new trees I've been working on since I last was able to do so. And ... I'll start off with this one!

It's called a Taiwan or Taiwanese something-or-other, and at first I felt a bit silly to have forgotten, or never really gotten the name, even though I have another of this sort I got earlier as well and will post later. But I have a number of trees now where I don't really know their names, and I find I don't really care at all. The tree speaks for itself. We'll call it "Ed" from Taiwan, if that's a better way to proceed ...

Anyway, I found it in the rain one day six weeks ago, jammed in amongst a hundred lesser but more obviously appealing trees in the large, overgrown stall of one of the dozen residents of the "Bonsai Society" commune of artists/collectors/hucksters/odd-balls living together with their fighting cocks, cats and dogs and kids (human and goat) in a loosely knit community of stranglings near the Diliman campus of the University of the Philippines in Metro Manila. The owner of the stall/lot where this tree was sitting is a friendly, smiling little man somewhere in the second half of his life. He seemed pleased that I saw past the apparently poor condition this tree seemed to present, and chose it over several hundred more compellingly standard "bonsai" that had more foliage and less black-mildew-covered deadwood. I/we had no room for it in the car that day, but I paid him the equivalent of about $150 in pesos (!) and said I'd be back for it some other time. When my Mac crashed, and the only Mac-sanctioned repair shop was in Manila, I used that trip to pick it up in a monsoon-like tropical storm.

But enough travelogue and back-story. Got it home, and got to work on the initial phases of cleaning, wire brushing/etc and first-coat lime sulphuring the extensive deadwood, after taking off several branches which were too-long neglected to keep and which mostly distracted from the central image anyway. It sat low in the pot, held in with lots of the rope you'll see on it now in lesser quantity, which had been left on so long as to mar the beautiful bark, so I repotted into much better pumice soil - setting it much higher so the long low jin didn't touch the pot or the soil, and securing it with a much lighter touch with the rope an a wee bit of wire. The tree had come with the usual heavy, copious, ponderously and viciously over-applied wrapped wire, which fortunately had not yet been left on for years so as to kill or disfigure unnaturally and unattractively the unfortunate bark and branches it tortured, and put on instead a few simple and harmless guy wires, while starting the Lignan-style "clip-and-grow" styling to improve the natural look of the cascade over time.

Refining, in a natural way, the cascade branching and foliage, while preserving the already damaged and vulnerable deadwood, which is certainly the true focal point of this tree - these are the long-term tasks ahead for this Taiwanese beauty - one of the finest trees I've ever had under my tutelage. Stands about 2 1/2 feet tall.

Enjoy!

Taiwan-1.jpg Taiwan-1B.jpg
 

Shima

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Well, finally my computer was returned to me, "repaired" I suppose, but missing lots of key software and such, and I spent about a week getting it back - only doing so after taking names as a preliminary to filing a police report, and then the last 2 1/2 days getting it semi-functional with almost constant communication via chat and phone with apple support geeks. The story is too traumatic to retell in detail, but the soothing balm in all this is that I can process and post photos of all the new trees I've been working on since I last was able to do so. And ... I'll start off with this one!

It's called a Taiwan or Taiwanese something-or-other, and at first I felt a bit silly to have forgotten, or never really gotten the name, even though I have another of this sort I got earlier as well and will post later. But I have a number of trees now where I don't really know their names, and I find I don't really care at all. The tree speaks for itself. We'll call it "Ed" from Taiwan, if that's a better way to proceed ...

Anyway, I found it in the rain one day six weeks ago, jammed in amongst a hundred lesser but more obviously appealing trees in the large, overgrown stall of one of the dozen residents of the "Bonsai Society" commune of artists/collectors/hucksters/odd-balls living together with their fighting cocks, cats and dogs and kids (human and goat) in a loosely knit community of stranglings near the Diliman campus of the University of the Philippines in Metro Manila. The owner of the stall/lot where this tree was sitting is a friendly, smiling little man somewhere in the second half of his life. He seemed pleased that I saw past the apparently poor condition this tree seemed to present, and chose it over several hundred more compellingly standard "bonsai" that had more foliage and less black-mildew-covered deadwood. I/we had no room for it in the car that day, but I paid him the equivalent of about $150 in pesos (!) and said I'd be back for it some other time. When my Mac crashed, and the only Mac-sanctioned repair shop was in Manila, I used that trip to pick it up in a monsoon-like tropical storm.

But enough travelogue and back-story. Got it home, and got to work on the initial phases of cleaning, wire brushing/etc and first-coat lime sulphuring the extensive deadwood, after taking off several branches which were too-long neglected to keep and which mostly distracted from the central image anyway. It sat low in the pot, held in with lots of the rope you'll see on it now in lesser quantity, which had been left on so long as to mar the beautiful bark, so I repotted into much better pumice soil - setting it much higher so the long low jin didn't touch the pot or the soil, and securing it with a much lighter touch with the rope an a wee bit of wire. The tree had come with the usual heavy, copious, ponderously and viciously over-applied wrapped wire, which fortunately had not yet been left on for years so as to kill or disfigure unnaturally and unattractively the unfortunate bark and branches it tortured, and put on instead a few simple and harmless guy wires, while starting the Lignan-style "clip-and-grow" styling to improve the natural look of the cascade over time.

Refining, in a natural way, the cascade branching and foliage, while preserving the already damaged and vulnerable deadwood, which is certainly the true focal point of this tree - these are the long-term tasks ahead for this Taiwanese beauty - one of the finest trees I've ever had under my tutelage. Stands about 2 1/2 feet tall.

Enjoy!

View attachment 206492 View attachment 206493
Fascinating story, and tree! Amazing it hasn't snapped off at the base in it's former difficult existence.
 

River's Edge

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Well, finally my computer was returned to me, "repaired" I suppose, but missing lots of key software and such, and I spent about a week getting it back - only doing so after taking names as a preliminary to filing a police report, and then the last 2 1/2 days getting it semi-functional with almost constant communication via chat and phone with apple support geeks. The story is too traumatic to retell in detail, but the soothing balm in all this is that I can process and post photos of all the new trees I've been working on since I last was able to do so. And ... I'll start off with this one!

It's called a Taiwan or Taiwanese something-or-other, and at first I felt a bit silly to have forgotten, or never really gotten the name, even though I have another of this sort I got earlier as well and will post later. But I have a number of trees now where I don't really know their names, and I find I don't really care at all. The tree speaks for itself. We'll call it "Ed" from Taiwan, if that's a better way to proceed ...

Anyway, I found it in the rain one day six weeks ago, jammed in amongst a hundred lesser but more obviously appealing trees in the large, overgrown stall of one of the dozen residents of the "Bonsai Society" commune of artists/collectors/hucksters/odd-balls living together with their fighting cocks, cats and dogs and kids (human and goat) in a loosely knit community of stranglings near the Diliman campus of the University of the Philippines in Metro Manila. The owner of the stall/lot where this tree was sitting is a friendly, smiling little man somewhere in the second half of his life. He seemed pleased that I saw past the apparently poor condition this tree seemed to present, and chose it over several hundred more compellingly standard "bonsai" that had more foliage and less black-mildew-covered deadwood. I/we had no room for it in the car that day, but I paid him the equivalent of about $150 in pesos (!) and said I'd be back for it some other time. When my Mac crashed, and the only Mac-sanctioned repair shop was in Manila, I used that trip to pick it up in a monsoon-like tropical storm.

But enough travelogue and back-story. Got it home, and got to work on the initial phases of cleaning, wire brushing/etc and first-coat lime sulphuring the extensive deadwood, after taking off several branches which were too-long neglected to keep and which mostly distracted from the central image anyway. It sat low in the pot, held in with lots of the rope you'll see on it now in lesser quantity, which had been left on so long as to mar the beautiful bark, so I repotted into much better pumice soil - setting it much higher so the long low jin didn't touch the pot or the soil, and securing it with a much lighter touch with the rope an a wee bit of wire. The tree had come with the usual heavy, copious, ponderously and viciously over-applied wrapped wire, which fortunately had not yet been left on for years so as to kill or disfigure unnaturally and unattractively the unfortunate bark and branches it tortured, and put on instead a few simple and harmless guy wires, while starting the Lignan-style "clip-and-grow" styling to improve the natural look of the cascade over time.

Refining, in a natural way, the cascade branching and foliage, while preserving the already damaged and vulnerable deadwood, which is certainly the true focal point of this tree - these are the long-term tasks ahead for this Taiwanese beauty - one of the finest trees I've ever had under my tutelage. Stands about 2 1/2 feet tall.

Enjoy!

View attachment 206492 View attachment 206493
Great find! Love the balance of negative space!
 

amcoffeegirl

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How do you keep it alive with so little foliage? Do you let it grow out?
 

grouper52

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How do you keep it alive with so little foliage? Do you let it grow out?
Good question.

Let me say first that, if you look at how much of the tree is still alive - it had good rootage that I only trimmed a little when repotting - there is very little need for the foliage to work overtime supporting the cambium and roots. Most of the tree's collective volume is dead heartwood and the extensive deadwood features, and the foliage plays no roll there.

Secondly, this tree, if like its cousin - which I got earlier, and will post later - will begin pushing new growth without missing a beat inside a week or two, despite the repot, which was into much better soil. Most tropicals, due to the supportive climate, grow like weeds here even if neglected, which mine are not.

As for letting it "grow out," with most of my trees here, since they grow out so robustly in this climate, I practice the "clip-and-grow" method of styling that originated with the Lingnan school of Penjing/bonsai in southern China centuries ago, and which creates IMHO a much more realistic/natural look to the branching structure than does wrapped wiring, since it mimics the way a tree actually grows and creates gnarly branches in nature. (The clip-and-grow method, BTW, is mentioned briefly in my tutorial, The Fine Art of "Baby Bending," in the Resource section of this web site). I usually let the new growth grow freely until it starts to lignify back at it's base for a few nodes, then trim at an angle to encourage the growth in the direction I want, and repeat this process to style the foliage in a very natural looking way. That, and branch placement for a short while with guy wires, is about all I do here where things grow so quickly. The locals simply put thick, super-tight wrapped wire in a stereotyped fashion on even single branch of every single tree, and leave it on forever - much to the detriment/disfigurement - and often the death - of many branches. The first thing I do when I get such a tree is take off all the wire, and start the method outlined above.
 

amcoffeegirl

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I will go check out your resources. Thanks for the reply.
I am familiar with ficus and a few other tropicals but not this one. I do see several places where green is popping out. Will you let those green shoots grow or remove them?
With ficus the deadwood doesn't last a long time since the wood is soft. Is this deadwood feature more durable than say a ficus?
One more question for you- I notice the bottom branch is looking fairly sparse. Is that intentional? Will you try to direct heavier growth to that area? Again thank you for your response.
 

grouper52

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You're welcome.

The wood on these is very hard and slow to rot, even here. The lime sulfur treatments, and vigilance, should be effective for long-term preservation, although there are several slightly soft areas now that will need to be removed if the lime sulfur doesn't prevent further rot.

The bottom part of the cascade is more sparse, partly due to some trimming on my part, {clip-and-grow), and partly because it is the youngest part of that tree and was still in the process of filling out when whoever was caring for it last cared for it. It may also be true, as it is for some trees, that energy for growth naturally gets routed upwards, since trees tend to grow up and out, not down - so that may also be a factor.

In keeping with that theory, there is one other area where new growth is occuring, as you seem to have noted, and that is up high where the huge deadwood mass begins to go off from the living part. There is one small cluster of leaves only, right against the bark, with no extension so far. This is merely the tree doing what trees naturally do, which is grow up, and - to a lesser extent, typically - out. On both this tree and the other one like it, I'm just letting that growth go on for now, both to let the trees get some vigor back, and on this tree because the new growth is right at the the junction of the massive deadwood mass and the living tree, and it seems a good idea right now to strengthen that area with the laying down of new supportive wood.

Hope all that makes sense.
 

amcoffeegirl

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No that's nice- thanks. It is an interesting and unique composition for sure.
 
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