Guy_wires Collection

[defra]

Looks good !
Hopefully youl grow some taper over the years !
I got one jbp left from a batch i did couple years ago but no were near the size of this one maybe should have up potted it.
Ill start a New batch next spring

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Looks good !
Hopefully youl grow some taper over the years !
I got one jbp left from a batch i did couple years ago but no were near the size of this one maybe should have up potted it.
Ill start a New batch next spring

I have no JBP anymore except one kotobuki.
JBP and I don't work well together. JRP works great! So do scots, rigida, banksiana, mugo and ponderosa. But JBP? Nope!

For taper I could do escape branches, but I want to not do this for these trees. I have three scots pines this size and I want to see if I can make slender but full padded trees. Just to see if that works.
That's the big thing I guess; no big cuts, so escape branches are unfortunately not an option.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Red pine on a rock.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Rondeposa from seed. Two years in the ground. 3-4 years old.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Last bonsai move of the year: removing two year old guy wires / bowstring.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

This was 2018.



This is 2024.



I feel like I'm getting better at the design part.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

View attachment 538497
Stuck a bunch of elms in the dirt this winter. Looking good.
So back in the dirt they went.
Will sort them out next year, probably.

When I was collecting these elms, I witnessed a dude clipping a young motorcyclist with his car. And to be honest, it kept me up for two nights.
I can work with blood, bone, all sorts of tissue, but blood and bones sticking out is why I never finished the full OSHA first aid course. Seeing a living person with a leg snapped in half lying in a puddle of dirt, that etched into my cornea. I can still hear the scream from the moment the EMT's had to.. Put it back into position so they could load the stretcher. The sedation didn't work yet, but they wanted to make sure he went to the hospital ASAP. From what I've heard - the police called me a couple weeks later, thanking me and asking me if I the family could contact me to express their thanks, I said no thanks - the kid is doing fine.

Yeah, terrible associations with these sticks. I want to make something more less traumatic.
So.. I have like, five? Maybe eight? Ramrod straight elm sticks with a bunch of roots. As you can imagine, snapping them would be funny, but I don't think I'm ready for that.
Essentially, I can start from the ground up; there's buds everywhere and elms are versatile.

Let's say you have a couple of these sticks for yourself, what style or design would you go for? Deciduous is not my strength at all. I kind of dislike them even.. But I want to show myself that I can overcome the hate (not for P. Afra!) and make something nice out of them. Ideas are welcome!

 

[Gabler]

When I was collecting these elms, I witnessed a dude clipping a young motorcyclist with his car. And to be honest, it kept me up for two nights.
I can work with blood, bone, all sorts of tissue, but blood and bones sticking out is why I never finished the full OSHA first aid course. Seeing a living person with a leg snapped in half lying in a puddle of dirt, that etched into my cornea. I can still hear the scream from the moment the EMT's had to.. Put it back into position so they could load the stretcher. The sedation didn't work yet, but they wanted to make sure he went to the hospital ASAP. From what I've heard - the police called me a couple weeks later, thanking me and asking me if I the family could contact me to express their thanks, I said no thanks - the kid is doing fine.

Yeah, terrible associations with these sticks. I want to make something more less traumatic.
So.. I have like, five? Maybe eight? Ramrod straight elm sticks with a bunch of roots. As you can imagine, snapping them would be funny, but I don't think I'm ready for that.
Essentially, I can start from the ground up; there's buds everywhere and elms are versatile.

Let's say you have a couple of these sticks for yourself, what style or design would you go for? Deciduous is not my strength at all. I kind of dislike them even.. But I want to show myself that I can overcome the hate (not for P. Afra!) and make something nice out of them. Ideas are welcome!

Put the elms in individual pots and let them grow. If you let the roots escape into the ground, you could get two to three centimeters of girth in one year. Then sort out the roots again, chop, and repeat each year. My American elm seedlings grew well over two meters in height last year, and I hard-pruned the roots last spring to sort out the nebari.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

My tridents are waking up and freezing. Too bad for them.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Did a bunch of juniper grafts today. Scions were cut and prepped yesterday; half of them in hormone solution, the others in water.
All + and - were placed on either side of the branch in order to give them more or less the same conditions. Let's see what happens!

As for the grafting timing: I use dropping Juniper pollen cones as an indicator for the perfect time to do the work. This tends to happen just before the last frost, but it is the time the receiver plants start elongating.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

2023 scions were allowed to fuse a bit more while keeping the original branch and foliage. Now, 2 years later, the original branches are removed entirely.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Successful girdling with a ziptie (green) causes slow dieback and roots to form closer to the trunk without having to cut anything. This is a quercus robur.
Third passed experiment in root girdling. Seems to be a viable technique. This is two years since placement.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Scion update: the hormone group is actively growing whereas the controls are still dormant.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Nice and even distribution of shoots. Also all in a similar size, did very little balancing this year.



Someone once said you can't keep bristlecones alive at sea level for more than 4 years. I think this one is six, or seven?



JRP.







Blaauw in need of a rewiring and some pruning.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Juniper before and after thinning. It does need new wiring, it's only now, after two years of being on there, biting in.



Scots pine after shoot pruning; reducing this years growth to four to six needle pairs.


Two, maybe three years of this technique. Bifurcation upon bifurcation.

 

[queenofsheba52]

Wow, lookin' really good!

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

One more down. Heavy fertilizer for all the pines after next week.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

View attachment 590349

Scion update: the hormone group is actively growing whereas the controls are still dormant.

Update: all but one died. They got COOKED in the sun.
Now trying fall grafting, to see if that would work any better. @leatherback you asked about these a while ago, where I mentioned I'm behind 5 years on the 10 year development plan.
It's because my scions keep baking to death. I know I have the technique right, I know from the wound healing that the timing is perfect too. I just can't seem to repeat high success numbers like I had before.
Now aiming for the middle of august when the wood is expanding, in hopes of getting them to take. Also changed the setup from Parafilm to plastic bags with a dash of sphagnum, and some air holes. Moisture levels are high, but two months in they seem fine, even the one that got yanked out by a bird.
Not sure though on when to check whether they healed right. Removing the tape would tell me everything, but it might rip open the wound. Oh well, we'll see in spring I guess.
At leas the approach grafts on the other zombie seem to be taking. Update in spring on those too.

 

[NashsMan]

Update: all but one died. They got COOKED in the sun.
Now trying fall grafting, to see if that would work any better. @leatherback you asked about these a while ago, where I mentioned I'm behind 5 years on the 10 year development plan.
It's because my scions keep baking to death. I know I have the technique right, I know from the wound healing that the timing is perfect too. I just can't seem to repeat high success numbers like I had before.
Now aiming for the middle of august when the wood is expanding, in hopes of getting them to take. Also changed the setup from Parafilm to plastic bags with a dash of sphagnum, and some air holes. Moisture levels are high, but two months in they seem fine, even the one that got yanked out by a bird.
Not sure though on when to check whether they healed right. Removing the tape would tell me everything, but it might rip open the wound. Oh well, we'll see in spring I guess.
At leas the approach grafts on the other zombie seem to be taking. Update in spring on those too.

I'm no expert on layering (or anything else, frankly), but beyond the sphagnum and plastic, I wrap the air layers with aluminum foil to reflect the sun's rays away. None of mine have cooked. Yet.

 

[leatherback]

I'm no expert on layering (or anything else, frankly), but beyond the sphagnum and plastic, I wrap the air layers with aluminum foil to reflect the sun's rays away. None of mine have cooked. Yet.

then again, layering is something quite different from grafting