leatherback
The Treedeemer
Get a tray. Put the pot in it.
I have 5 or so trays with seedlings bumming around at the moment. Beats 100 3 inch pots.
Aftercare Forest Structure Styling or Maintenance?
- Thread starter thatguy
- Start date
I have 5 or so trays with seedlings bumming around at the moment. Beats 100 3 inch pots.
thatguy
Mame
Yeah I was just thinking the cheap cement mixing containers I got for soil would do well. Fill them up with the pots, top with mulch, slide under the bench for winter with all the other friends.
LanceMac10
Imperial Masterpiece
'Atta boy!!
25? 3 times that when I first started....mid 30 range now...
25? 3 times that when I first started....mid 30 range now...
thatguy
Mame
That's just the trident maples
Not counting the 11 Japanese maples coming, or all the other trees on the bench. Haha
this forest grouping would be enhanced immensely by transferring it to a much wider, much shallower tray style pot.
thatguy
Mame
Agreed. Negative space in the composition is super important. Whether between "groups" of trees or to one side of the entire grove.
leatherback
The Treedeemer
beers?
leatherback
The Treedeemer
you seem to get some cold winters!
LanceMac10
Imperial Masterpiece
Started out a few years before the birth of my son...so prior to that, that would be a slow weekend!!
leatherback
The Treedeemer
hm.. Feel like a big woosh nowStarted out a few years before the birth of my son...so prior to that, that would be a slow weekend!!
Forsoothe!
Imperial Masterpiece
You will be confounded by the assembly of this, E Pluribus Unum process. They will fit together badly. You will shuffle them around like an idiot and become irritated how poorly the process is going and will eventually just throw them together any which way from Sunday and accept your beating because you'll worry that you are beating up the trees.
If you don't like that description of you and your trees, you need to practice the assembly process. You can do it this autumn and be properly chastened, and rethink what you are going to do, next spring when you plant your trees that will be in a wake-up-and-grow mode. But right now you can bag up the individual tree's roots in sandwich bags, and go through the motions of placing them next to each other in some fashion that resembles the outlines as in the pretty pictures, above. You will need to make a device that can be suspended above the pot from which you can drop strings or wires that will hold individual trees erect and in place while you test-place the rest of the trees here & there and back & forth, hither & yon. Every tree will need to be trimmed to accommodate its neighbor. You can't put them back together after you decide to put them someplace else, so part of this educational process will be to photograph and number all the trees so you can manipulate the bunch on you computer or with cut-outs which will allow you to learn two things: 1.) There are trees that naturally fit as some particular part of the puzzle, like "outside left-handed" or some such position, and others that are nothing trees that will serve anywhere. and 2.) It takes a long time to get this straight in your mind and the trees will be suffering while you are screwing around. That's why you need to go through this dry-run, think it over, make a plan that will work, get your hardware aids ready and workable, and then do it in the right season, spring. One more piece of advice: don't feel compelled to use every tree you have in this one forest. Use what works and leaves some room for growth.
And that's all there is to it! Here's one about 20 years old.
If you don't like that description of you and your trees, you need to practice the assembly process. You can do it this autumn and be properly chastened, and rethink what you are going to do, next spring when you plant your trees that will be in a wake-up-and-grow mode. But right now you can bag up the individual tree's roots in sandwich bags, and go through the motions of placing them next to each other in some fashion that resembles the outlines as in the pretty pictures, above. You will need to make a device that can be suspended above the pot from which you can drop strings or wires that will hold individual trees erect and in place while you test-place the rest of the trees here & there and back & forth, hither & yon. Every tree will need to be trimmed to accommodate its neighbor. You can't put them back together after you decide to put them someplace else, so part of this educational process will be to photograph and number all the trees so you can manipulate the bunch on you computer or with cut-outs which will allow you to learn two things: 1.) There are trees that naturally fit as some particular part of the puzzle, like "outside left-handed" or some such position, and others that are nothing trees that will serve anywhere. and 2.) It takes a long time to get this straight in your mind and the trees will be suffering while you are screwing around. That's why you need to go through this dry-run, think it over, make a plan that will work, get your hardware aids ready and workable, and then do it in the right season, spring. One more piece of advice: don't feel compelled to use every tree you have in this one forest. Use what works and leaves some room for growth.
And that's all there is to it! Here's one about 20 years old.
thatguy
Mame
I dont dislike the description of me and my trees as you laid it out. I've in fact seen that it is my likely future but I was prepared to take the frustrating beating so that I may learn.
I love the suggestions of dry runs, categorizing the trees, manipulating them digitally all to help prepare for greater success. Also the idea of a apparatus to help hold them in place is very intriguing. Unsure precisely what that would look like but I can sort of picture it. Any chance you have a photograph of one? I'm definitely concerned about my ability to get them positioned and wired securely in place once the time arrives.
Definitely not compelled to use all the trees. Only what works in the design. Thank you so much for the helpful post and the inspirational forest!
Forsoothe!
Imperial Masterpiece
I'm lucky enough to have some 1" x 1" vinyl coated wire machine guard fencing that I use for rabbit fences and other uses, but you can buy hardware cloth from big box and nail it to a 2 x 4 frame that you can suspend or bridge over a work table. Wrap a wire around the top of each tree that is long enough to be poked up through the grid and bent-over so it will hang in the right place. This doesn't have to be pretty, it just has to work.
Dry runs are really useful and I've never prototyped anything that I was sorry for taking that extra step. There's always something that you forgot about or that goes really different from how you thought it would. Practice may not make perfect, but it does make things better.
Dry runs are really useful and I've never prototyped anything that I was sorry for taking that extra step. There's always something that you forgot about or that goes really different from how you thought it would. Practice may not make perfect, but it does make things better.
leatherback
The Treedeemer
Bonsai is better when not done alone. Especially when putting together a forest. I am not a fan of preparing a forest by computer. 3D is just different and tilting or rotation of the tree by minute amounts makes a difference. I tend to place the trees, wire the roots and then have connective wires in the canopy from trunk to trunk to keep those distances as it grows together. Especially as you will have very little root at the trees that are stable enough to wire down, you need to "do whatever works". Extra hands are enormously useful. THese do not have to be bonsai hands!!
Key is to prepare A LOT of wires in the pot. I think for mine I have 8 double wires connected to the bottom of the pot (Wich is made of plastic, which helped enourmously, else bamboo sticks are great to make a frame on the bottom of the pot, and connect wires to. That way you can place your main tree (The core of a good forest is to have a dominant tree, which you place first) and forget about that one. Then you just start adding trees.
Do a rough trimming while building the forest. Once all the trees are in place, go through the whole think and trim the individual trees.
Key is to prepare A LOT of wires in the pot. I think for mine I have 8 double wires connected to the bottom of the pot (Wich is made of plastic, which helped enourmously, else bamboo sticks are great to make a frame on the bottom of the pot, and connect wires to. That way you can place your main tree (The core of a good forest is to have a dominant tree, which you place first) and forget about that one. Then you just start adding trees.
Do a rough trimming while building the forest. Once all the trees are in place, go through the whole think and trim the individual trees.
Shibui
Imperial Masterpiece
I'm also for spring for group assembly. Beginners underestimate the amount of root removal required to get a good arrangement. It seems to be natural for us to space the trunks pretty evenly. In fact, I have found it quite difficult NOT to space trunks evenly. natural looking groups have a whole range of trunk spacing. To get that in the scale we are looking at some trunks will almost touch which means removing all the roots from one side of 2 trees.
Trying to assemble a group from trees in pots with minimal root reduction will only result in an unsatisfactory park like planting with rows of evenly spaced trees. you will almost certainly be amazed how difficult it is to get random spacing. Probably a tautology but we really need to plan for randomness.
Many years ago a visiting Japanese master told us trees destined for groups should be grown together for some time before assembly so the branching ad trunk shape match. You can do that now with your trees in pots. Assemble the potted trees into their (relative) positions and orientation in larger crates. Even do some branch pruning. You can do almost all except the relative trunk spacing. Then leave them to grow as a pseudo group for the rest of this season and do the assembly next spring.
Trying to assemble a group from trees in pots with minimal root reduction will only result in an unsatisfactory park like planting with rows of evenly spaced trees. you will almost certainly be amazed how difficult it is to get random spacing. Probably a tautology but we really need to plan for randomness.
Many years ago a visiting Japanese master told us trees destined for groups should be grown together for some time before assembly so the branching ad trunk shape match. You can do that now with your trees in pots. Assemble the potted trees into their (relative) positions and orientation in larger crates. Even do some branch pruning. You can do almost all except the relative trunk spacing. Then leave them to grow as a pseudo group for the rest of this season and do the assembly next spring.
canoeguide
Chumono
I can't help thinking that the visual complexity involved in assembling a forest planting grows exponentially with the number of trees.
Using graph theory, the number of relationships = (n(n-1))/2 where n is the number of trees.
Using this, a 2-tree forest (nevermind that 2 trees isn't really a forest) has 1 relationship. Of course, even that one relationship is not simple: there is the spacing, rotation, height, tilt, future plans, etc. of the trees to consider.
A 5-tree planting moves up to 10 relationships, a 7-tree to 21, a 9-tree to 36, and so on.
At some point, the number of trees overwhelms the viewer enough that there are too many spatial relationships to visually consider. Like individual blots of color in an impressionist painting, the viewer can see the individual trees, but they aren't going to focus on or subconsciously critique the placement of any of them.
The lesson here might be that it's easier to create a forest with either fewer trees (and fewer relationships), OR so many trees that individual relationships lose visual importance.
I don't know if this is a particularly useful idea, but it's something to consider.
Using graph theory, the number of relationships = (n(n-1))/2 where n is the number of trees.
Using this, a 2-tree forest (nevermind that 2 trees isn't really a forest) has 1 relationship. Of course, even that one relationship is not simple: there is the spacing, rotation, height, tilt, future plans, etc. of the trees to consider.
A 5-tree planting moves up to 10 relationships, a 7-tree to 21, a 9-tree to 36, and so on.
At some point, the number of trees overwhelms the viewer enough that there are too many spatial relationships to visually consider. Like individual blots of color in an impressionist painting, the viewer can see the individual trees, but they aren't going to focus on or subconsciously critique the placement of any of them.
The lesson here might be that it's easier to create a forest with either fewer trees (and fewer relationships), OR so many trees that individual relationships lose visual importance.
I don't know if this is a particularly useful idea, but it's something to consider.
thatguy
Mame
I'm going to frame this!
Luckily I sourced some very nice mesh bottomed 20"x13" heavy duty propogation trays which should aid in putting the wires exactly where I need them. Noted about the extra hands! I will have at least one helper.
I like this idea quite a bit. Grouping the trees on the bench in their respective pots them so they can be viewed and grow together to some extent. Also I've been taking quite a few walks in the forest and documenting/observing how trees tend to grow. The randomness of nature is truly incredible!
No I think it is a great idea to consider and something I have seen repeated both in videos and in a few books I have read. I can see how the placement of 3 trees would need to be near perfect but a 20 tree placement could be less so to some extent because the eye never hones in on any one particular relationship (other than perhaps the three trees selected as focal points).
leatherback
The Treedeemer
A forest studied will show all the mistakes, I am afraid.
thatguy
Mame
What cruel masters you all are I'll strive for perfection.
I'll strive for perfection.
leatherback
The Treedeemer
nah, not cruel. Just ensuring you know what you need to get done!What cruel masters you all are
