Bending a thick trunk

[EricInSD]

A year into my bonsai journey I'd like some advice on bending a stubborn trunk on a cypress. I have decided on a wind-swept semi cascade form but I the main trunk is quite straight. Hopefully the pictures are sufficient to see where I'm headed and where I need help.

In the third picture I show the trunk and the direction I want to bend it. A club member suggested I pound a reciprocating saw blade through and make a vertical cut and wrap it in Raphia. That's unintuitive but may be best. I've watched videos where people cut wedges out of the side they are compressing, which makes sense but scares me. It's evident that I'll have to use some advanced technique. Any advice?

TIA
Eric

 

[bonsaichile]

Often it is better to work with the tree rathet than against it. Maybe the best solution for both you and your tree would be to look for another design more in agreement with the tree as is?

 

[EricInSD]

Thank you. I do appreciate that philosophy and I learned something by letting that sink in.

At this point, I'm pretty committed and I'd like to learn from the experience. Please share additional thoughts!

 

[Eckhoffw]

Perhaps using a Trunk splitter would do it. With a wrap, wire and turnbuckle.
Have to say, looks like a unnatural bend, but I’m sure it’s doable.
Good luck.

 

[BonjourBonsai]

Check out the advice I just got in a similar thread:

Seriously big bend

Here's juniper squamata I repotted last year. I'm looking to style it this spring. I want to take the large horizontal branch and bring it back towards vertical and make it the leader. I've never attempted a bend this big before. I imagine raffia and very thick wire are required. If you know of...

www.bonsainut.com

 

[EricInSD]

Perhaps using a Trunk splitter would do it. With a wrap, wire and turnbuckle.
Have to say, looks like a unnatural bend, but I’m sure it’s doable.
Good luck.

Thanks. I think that's essentially what the club member was recommending with the saw. I'm not sure I can find a trunk splitter big enough...

 

[EricInSD]

Check out the advice I just got in a similar thread:

Seriously big bend

Here's juniper squamata I repotted last year. I'm looking to style it this spring. I want to take the large horizontal branch and bring it back towards vertical and make it the leader. I've never attempted a bend this big before. I imagine raffia and very thick wire are required. If you know of...

www.bonsainut.com

very helpful....thank you

 

[Ruddigger]

You can split the trunk and raffia it, or hollow it a little, we do bigger stuff than that with my club sensei up in Chino. The weather is getting warm now though, the time for heavy bending is pretty much done.

 

[EricInSD]

You can split the trunk and raffia it, or hollow it a little, we do bigger stuff than that with my club sensei up in Chino. The weather is getting warm now though, the time for heavy bending is pretty much done.

Oh! I didn't realize that this was a seasonal activity! Why is it bad to bend heavily after it warms up?

 

[Potawatomi13]

Juniper bark can/will "slip" if bent during growing and kill cambium layer and branch being bent. Should only do when dormant. Personally suggest wedge or saw kerf cuts. When dormant.

 

[BobbyLane]

Thank you. I do appreciate that philosophy and I learned something by letting that sink in.

At this point, I'm pretty committed and I'd like to learn from the experience. Please share additional thoughts!

I like the design idea, seems like it could suit the material.
But what made you come to the decision, something you seen in nature, another bonsai, a club members idea, a windswept dream? any inspirational pics?
Often when im committed to a design, im usually wanting to emulate something I seen maybe in the park or forest. If I feel the material is suited or can be moulded that way.

 

[rockm]

The tree could fit into the design you're planning, but it's going to be dicey. The procedure you're planning has a great possibility of killing the tree--as a year of experience, is, well, a year of experience. Prepare yourself for that possibility. The substantive bending you're planning can go off the rails in an instant with the trunk snapping, the bark sloughing off or being irreparably damaged. All that is more likely with the trunk here as you've jinned half of it, which makes the bend even trickier. Such bends depend upon the bonsaiist understanding when the limits of the tree have been reached just BEFORE they are reached.

BTW, the vertical cut through the trunk is not a bad idea. It understands that by making two separate sections that will be bent together, reduces the torque on them and gives the bark room to shift a bit. Raffia isn't the easiest stuff to work with and takes some expertise to get tight enough to be effective. Other, more modern materials are not only stronger, but easier to work with. Self adhering sports wraps, like Coban, are easier to use and can be more easily wrapped tight.

Additionally, for future reference for cascade designs, this planned cascade would been greatly enhanced with the branch above the current trunk, or the secondary trunk behind the living trunk, being left alive to be wired into apex branches. Most good cascades have such branches to add interest to the top of the cascade branch. Both offered pretty good apex options for a cascade.

 

[dbonsaiw]

Is progressively bending a trunk a viable option for projects like this? For example, could rope be used to pull the trunk to the right with a second rope lower down pulling to the left (to provide counter-weight and prevent the tree from being pulled out of the pot)? And then tighten the rope every few weeks. I wonder if this can help acclimate the trunk to the bend and prevent snapping by doing it over time.

I did this last year with a 2" JM trunk that I got for $15 that I wasn't too concerned about. It seems to have worked, but I'm not sure if I just lucked out or if this actually a viable method. I used ever increasing amounts of rope to start a bend and then began hanging more and more weight to further pull the trunk. I did this for months and achieved a decent bend from a stick straight trunk. The scars from the ropes were horrible (in fact, rope was imbedded into the trunk by the time I was done), but I placed the rope high up in the area and I pruned that off this year. I also see what I can best describe as small stress fractures along parts of the trunk from the forced bend, but nothing too bad.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

I've bent trunks around wood.
Schematically it looked like this "IO" and by wrapping wire on both ends that I pulled over time, I managed to make it go "(O".

Here's one example halfway.

 

[EricInSD]

Thanks for all of the responses. My takeaway is that, I'm better off waiting until the tree is dormant again before making a bend that requires cuts. That will give me time to gain additional experience as well.

I like the design idea, seems like it could suit the material.
But what made you come to the decision, something you seen in nature, another bonsai, a club members idea, a windswept dream? any inspirational pics?
Often when im committed to a design, im usually wanting to emulate something I seen maybe in the park or forest. If I feel the material is suited or can be moulded that way.

The design inspiration was the plant itself. When I got it from the nursery it was quiet unwieldy (think sideshow Bob's hair!) After uncovering that boomerang shaped branch that is now Jin, the idea came to life.

 

[Ruddigger]

Heres a California Juniper that was just a tangle of long leggy branches, bent like crazy, just as a demonstration. Nothing special done besides raffia and heavy wire.

 

[EricInSD]

After absorbing the advice here and deciding to wait to attempt the bend, I remembered that I had postponed repotting because I was planning the bend. I think it's already a little late here for that too but I suspected the tree was pretty root bound in the nursery pot. Anyway, it was, as I repotted it last week. I spent and hour and a half unwinding roots and removing old soil and put it in a terracotta pot for now. I've never changed the angle so drastically or on such a large plant. I used med/large "Boons mix" and added some ectomycorrhiza. Some of the roots were exposed because of the angle change so I covered them with a small soil mix. Is that a good move?

I did a little more work on the tree. I removed a couple of very straight long branches and did some more wiring. The tree has lots of long straight branches that also inspired the design. Hopefully that gives a better idea where I'm heading and why I want to bend the trunk to finish the story.

I do have one other big question. Is this a Juniper or a Cypress? I got it at a wholesale nursery. It was untagged and they wrote it up as a cupressus sempervirens but that was based on the visual observation of one employee. The color is blue green and it has blue berries. Pictures of the roots and tree below