Another little Mountain Hemlock-Cascade Sequence

[ghues]

Hi Folks, Here is a sequence.........
This little Mountain Hemlock (Hm) didn’t have much promise or so I was told but this little guy like many of my other trees are helping me learn so much.
I collected it in the fall of 2007, once home I covered it with a layer of mulch and left it until the spring of 2010. Sorry no picture of it in the wild or in the nursery bed but here it is in April 2010 when I re-potted it (phots = exposing its lower trunk, the roots and shifted forest floor). It grew horizontally and was buried in humus (forest floor) up to the knuckle in the photo. I didn’t bare-root it too much as Hm don’t take to kindly to that technique, too early in their transition into potted culture. I also took care to salvage and shift the broken down forest floor as I wanted to incorporate some of it (20 %) into its new soil mix (pumice, decomposed granite and shifted fish mulch) for the mycorrhizae held within it.......

 

[ghues]

Another little Mountain Hemlock-Cascade Sequence Contd.

Here it is after it was potted up - April 2010.....as it was newly re-potted I only put on some crued wiring to seperate the basic branch structure, then fed it well all summer....then I

 

[ghues]

Another little Mountain Hemlock-Cascade Sequence Contd.

......It grew well this summer and the branches started to take to their new rotations......here it is after this months work. I had to add the rock for stability/weigth as it is very top heavy and lopsided. I still need to wire the smaller (tertiary) branches but on these (Hm) you have to be careful as they can be very brittle and damage easily. I'll leave it now and let it rest until next September.
Cheers
Gman

 

[grouper52]

Great work so far, Graham!

Mountain hemlocks are really great material - especially if they are old enough to start sporting interesting bark, like this one.

Like you, I also greatly enjoy finding dismissed or unlikely material to see what I can do with it, and somewhere I've posted a MH literati progression starting with similar material from the Cascades.

Your work so far is steady and cautious, which I appreciate. At first I was wondering why you didn't bend the secondary and tertiary branches into a more compact design, but sounds like you are planning that when the sap is flowing a bit more , giving the branches more flexibility - a good strategy.

I'm sure you know, but for the sake of others here who don't know and yet who live where they can keep these trees alive (summer mights must remain cool and moist - they start failing even right down the road in Portland, OR), shaping these trees can be a task. They simply don't back bud, and the foliage is all out at the ends of long, rangy branches.

These branches therefore, must be wired and folded in together to present anything that looks decent. The branches, especially at certain times of year, can tolerate really gnarly bends, BUT . . . . it takes years for the bends to set most times, AND . . . they have the bad habit of sitting there with wrapped branches looking wonderful for months or years, and then suddenly a section will get a growth spurt on the bark, which will hypertrophy horribly, bulging around and even enveloping the wire, and the resulting spiral branch scar will look horrible for ever. So they must either have the wire changed frequently for a long time, or be watched very closely.

It'll be great to see where you take this tree. Please keep us updated. They are great trees, especially for accepting a challenge and "learning experience" with unlikely/dismissed material. Dan and I, and more recently my wife and I, collected a number of these beauties in alpine areas around here this fall - long-term projects for sure, but potentially worthy ones. Thanks for posting your work on this one.

BTW, I was hoping to run into you and finally get to meet you at the convention. Sorry to have missed the opportunity to meet in person and have the opportunity to put our online tensions behind us. Maybe next time.

Will

 

[ghues]

Update

Hi Folks,
Its been almost two years since I updated this little fellow - its still alive and doing well. First photo left side,second right side after I "cleaned it up" this weekend, 3rd photo front in August and again from this weekend.
Hm don't back bud but this one is filling out nicely.
Comments welcome.
Cheers G

 

[Rose Mary]

Nice..like what you've done with it so far.

I have several mtn hemlocks I collected last winter. Not the bark yours had..

thank you for the update I love seeing progressions.

Rose Mary
SW Oregon

 

[JudyB]

Very nice creation Ghues. You should be proud. it is filling in nicely, are you planning on doing some carving? (nudge)

 

[ghues]

Thanks Rose, they do well in our climes and I'm starting to enjoy natives rather than the more traditional species.
Hi Judy, I think it likes the fertilizer regime lol. I use a slow release one as well as some more tradtional organic additives.
I'll wait until the foliage pads are move developed before reducing the nutrition pathways down to each branch and wait and see whats hidden below as I'm thinking about raising it at the next repot.
Cheers G

 

[ghues]

Dec 2012 Update

Hi folks,
Time to update this thread..... one has to love wiring......the branch structure on them requires wire on almost all branches....1mm
For me the Cascade form reminds me of the rugged mountains from whence it came.....it came from a very exposed ridge and gets over 30 feet of snow annually so many of the trees hang low over the micro-landscape. The rock is for stability.....
Cheers Graham

 

[JudyB]

This bird looks great! What great sweeping motion. Really makes me feel the tree.Thanks for updating with such nice photos. (I must do better with my photos)

 

[Si Nguyen]

I really like this little tree G! And the other cascade larch too. Thanks for all the updates. Your trees are heathy and thriving in these tall pots.

 

[John Ruger]

I really like the tree too, got a lot of character to it and an excellent progression story.

 

[ghues]

Thanks Judy....the foliage has really filled out....(at the ends ot each branch) so I've tried to wire the branches into all the gaps in the pads to fill them out a little more.
Thanks Si /John......really do appreciate your kind words.
Cheers
Graham

 

[ghues]

This Mountain Hemi is still doing Ok but after 5 years in this pot I'll look for something different come spring re-potting time.
Here is a look at it as of yesterday - enjoying the sun.....after reviewing this image I've moved the middle branch on the right side further away from the viewer to fill in the back more.
Cheers Graham

 

[Eric Group]

This Mountain Hemi is still doing Ok but after 5 years in this pot I'll look for something different come spring re-potting time.
Here is a look at it as of yesterday - enjoying the sun.....after reviewing this image I've moved the middle branch on the right side further away from the viewer to fill in the back more.
Cheers Graham

Quite the transformation Graham!

 

[just.wing.it]

Dang, that's a cool looking tree! Nice work