European hornbeam

[Bnana]

This hornbeam had to be removed from a garden and that allowed me to collect it and try to make something out of it.
It has been collected end of December, not ideal but leaving it longer was no option.

I removed a large part of the roots, the taproot and lower sidetroots, and there are only horizontal roots on one side so that will be the front.
There was a shrub directly next to it so no roots developing on the other side but with this front there seems to be a nice start of a nebari.
For now I made a rather high cut and plan to let it grow for a year so that I can select a new leader lower down. For now the idea is to have a twin trunk, removing the smaller trunk (1 cm diameter).
I'm not sure where I'll chop, that depends on where it will develop. I draw possible cuts but those are at the same height so that is not ideal.
After I took the pictures I covered the roots.

I read a lot about this species and it seems to be a very suitable species, but I do not have any experience with them.
So any opinion or tip is welcome.

 

[leatherback]

Nice stuff. Normally it should recover just fine.

Have you since taking the picture covered the nebari? Developing a good nebari includes keeping a good layer of substrate around the base, so it is always moist. Certainly the year after collection you can get lucky with new roots popping from the trunk.

I would personally opt fo using the smaller trunk, and removing one of the bigger trunks (Or even both). The two big trunks are too equal to my eye to keep both..

 

[BobbyLane]

if you look at a lot of clump bonsai or multi trunks with straight ish trunks, the taper tends to start further up, i think your red lines are pretty low.
unless you prefer to build a smaller tree with the material.

 

[Bnana]

I did cover the nebari with a layer of substrate but did not add a picture of that.

Keeping the left and the small trunk might be a good option, Ican bend the small trunk towards the right trunk as it comes to the front now.
That is something I could do soon, the rest I'll do later after it has recovered. Depending on where possible leaders emerge it could be like in this picture.
Removing both big trunks will leave two large wounds, not sure I'm comfortable with that. That will take very long to heal as well.

I can leave it a bit longer, it is likely that more branche will emerge and that will help. Than I can leave the trunk a bit longer, just shouldn't be a long boring straight.
The small trunk has to be cut rather low to allow me to move it more to the right. And it won't take long to regrow that.

Thanks for the input.

 

[Bnana]

I'm now gravitating to something like this:

http://www.bonsaimoravia.cz/carpinus-betulus-02-little-sumo/

So cutting one side short and remove the other truck.