Camellia Dead Wood

[sevan]

I'm thinking about collecting this Camellia next spring, but I'm still very new to bonsai and have no experience working with dead wood, so I was hoping you all could give me some tips or point me to resources to learn more.

Given some of the decay that has already occurred, is retaining the dead wood as a feature still an option? If so, what would I need to do to make that happen?

If I need to carve away the dead wood, can anyone point me to a good resource for tips on how to do it in a way that looks natural?

Alternatively, this one might be way beyond my ability to do something worthwhile and could just stay where it is.

Thanks,
Scott

 

[Michael P]

Go ahead and collect it. If it lives you can figure out what to do with the deadwood then. The deadwood is not an urgent thing that must be dealt with immediately.

 

[Shibui]

IMHO dead wood looks way more natural when it does have some hollows. Even completely hollow trunks are still great for bonsai.
After you pot it the dead wood can be scraped back to solid wood then treated with wood preservative - Lime sulfur (jin liquid) is the traditional solution but I see more people using newer alternatives like Earl's wood hardener or Superglue as dead wood treatments.

The biggest problem I see is the reverse taper where the living trunk joins the dead section but that's a fair way up so you may even chop the live part below there.