How do you hide chop and graft spots ?

[JohnW63]

I was looking at what the garden center had for larger trees to work with, while those little 1 gallon plants grow up, since it's sinking in how long I will just be watching them grow without doing anything bonsai like to them. As I walked about, I realized that a lot of the larger trees have an obvious graft spot, a few inches above the ground. Then, thinking about removing sacrificial branches , and trunk chops also leave a pretty obvious spot on the tree. How do you work with our hide these man made defects in the trunk ?

 

[Vance Wood]

A lot of it depends on the species of the tree. A chop on the top of any tree depends on two things; the chop must be made at an angle that will flow believably into the new leader or top of the tree. The chop will heal by itself and look pretty good after a number of years as long as the chop itself is smoothly hollowed out.

Dealing with branches is another issue. Most of my work with these guys deal with Pines. If you have followed any of my posts in the past I always cut a branch, left a stub to dry out. Then I have the choice to cut it flush, hollow out the new wound and wait for it to heal, make it into a jin. Most of the time this works really well. Keeping the stump will to a great degree prevent the tree from making a large obvious scar. In a few words cut the stump later and clean up the area or jin the stump.

I just realized I do not have a current picture of this tree. It is a Hinoki Cypress I started as a club demo in 1994. This picture goes back to 2008 and the tree has changed drastically. But you can still see where the top of the tree has been chopped a couple of times to produce a bit of taper. I'll try to get a better picture sometime today if it stops raining. This tree has turned out to be the best six dollars I have ever spent, and no I do not have a before photo.

 

[Poink88]

Hiding it is not the only solution...
- You can flaunt it by carving and creating a "feature" out of the defect.
- You can also remove it (layering above a graft for instance).
- Or hide it by making sure the chops are located at the back of the tree. Foliage can also be employed to cover it. In time a proper chop may heal over also.

There you are, these are just what jumped at me but there are options...you just need to determine which works best to employ.

 

[JohnW63]

I guess the nursery graft spot would be hardest to blend in, since it's below the branch line. Most are pretty obvious.

 

[Poink88]

I guess the nursery graft spot would be hardest to blend in, since it's below the branch line. Most are pretty obvious.

See my second bullet point.

 

[Vance Wood]

See my second bullet point.

I agree but that's probably not going to happen. If someone has enough experience to obtain a tree needing this solution to resolve its problems, that person's ability will probably rule out the tree in the first place.

The problem with most grafted trees, even if the graft is good, is the difference in the nature of the bark. This will never be resolved without layering off the portion of the tree that is worth saving.

 

[johng]

With the exception of imported JWP, very few bonsai are created from grafted nursery stock precisely because of the problems mentioned above. In general, I suggest you find stock that is not grafted with which to work. In some cases it is possible to air layer above the graft...however, if a cultivar is grafted by the nursery trade it is often because it does not do well on its own roots....otherwise it would be produced by cutting, typically far easier and successful than grafting.

So air layer grafted material with the knowledge that it most likely will not be successful in the long run.

John

 

[Vance Wood]

With the exception of imported JWP, very few bonsai are created from grafted nursery stock precisely because of the problems mentioned above. In general, I suggest you find stock that is not grafted with which to work. In some cases it is possible to air layer above the graft...however, if a cultivar it grafted by the nursery trade it is often because it does not do well on its own roots....otherwise it would be produced by cutting, typically far easier and successful than grafting.

So air layer grafted material with the knowledge that it mostly likely will not be successful in the long run.

John

Maybe; but from my knowledge most Pines, with the exception of a few, are difficult to impossible to grow from cuttings.

 

[Smoke]

With the exception of imported JWP, very few bonsai are created from grafted nursery stock precisely because of the problems mentioned above. In general, I suggest you find stock that is not grafted with which to work. In some cases it is possible to air layer above the graft...however, if a cultivar it grafted by the nursery trade it is often because it does not do well on its own roots....otherwise it would be produced by cutting, typically far easier and successful than grafting.

So air layer grafted material with the knowledge that it mostly likely will not be successful in the long run.

John

Shoot I am going to go prune my pines and stick them in the ground. I had no idea it was that easy.

 

[johng]

Shoot I am going to go prune my pines and stick them in the ground. I had no idea it was that easy.

It is completely that easy Smoke...go cut the limbs off all your pines and stickem in the ground and you will have a huge forest before you know it...............and then all your pines without limbs will bud back!

you're such a comedian

 

[johng]

Maybe; but from my knowledge most Pines, with the exception of a few, are difficult to impossible to grow from cuttings.

Agreed...but I was referring to maples not pines...typically these questions are about grafted maple cultivars.

 

[JohnW63]

Well, at least I recognized this as a problem and didn't buy it and then post pictures in a thead about how to fix my new bonsai. I would guess this happens a lot.

 

[Vanginault87]

I dont have pictures to post of the ones I've done as they have gone off to new owners. But with pines a simple fix that works for me is air pots. I use the black plastic kind with the holes and the removable base. What i do is take my pot and move the base higher up in the pot and add about 1-2" of soil on the base. I plant my trees with the soil going up to right where the base of the graft is located. No wire, no cuts, just plant it. What this does is allows the existing roots to stay in place but as they get air pruned they push more roots out from the buried part of the trunk. Once the tree roots outgrow the pot you shorten the trunk from the bottom as high as you can and balance on top. Think of it like instead of pruning root tips your pruning the equal amount from the bottom by cutting the trunk section off. Over a pretty short period of time you'll get a graft scar that is right at the base of the trunk and soil line with a good nebari right at the base. The scar seems to look less like a scar and more like a natural feature of the trees nebari. You still maintain the benefit of the root stock only in a shorter form. I especially like doing this on cork bark JBP because the bark texture hides the scar very well. I'm actually getting ready to do this again so I'll document it for the future. I'll put a picture of the grafted plant I'll be performing it on this time to show where I do it at. * the picture is fuzzy but you can see it well enough, right at top of my finger. DO NOT fall into the temptation to bury the graft so it roots at the graft. I have never successfully been able to do it and it will break off the roots at the graft location every time so go just below it an the swell will fix the scar.

 

[Forsoothe!]

When doing difficult things, size matters. We have ordinarily healthy trees that we lose every year to a long list of problems, and when you add the vagaries of the major trauma of big chops and air or ground layers of large trunks, the odds tilt in the wrong direction every time. It can be done, but that doesn't take into consideration that the artistic aspects of covering ugly and/or large holes/stumps is a horse of a different color, it's another, different skill set often absent. Everything takes teaching, time and practice. If a large chop is a first attempt, it is not going to end well. Nothing is ever as easy as it first appears. Worse yet, expecting to be successfully coached via a half dozen paragraphs is like believing in magic.

There is an ugly truth I need to spit out, too. The kinds of skill sets held by people who find themselves with ugly trees that need layers and layers of major recombobulation is inversely proportional to the kinds and levels of skill sets possessed by them. The most important skill that newbees can acquire early in the game is "how to shop" for stock that can actually be turned into bonsai by wire and clip & grow. If a body can't buy the right stock, then they can't fix bad stock either. That IS a flat statement. If they use bad purchases to learn what not to buy, then it's money well-spent. If they think that you can convert bad stock into great trees then they're still too inexperienced to do it. Doing it can be done but it's never worth the effort which is why the experienced don't bother trying. That same amount of time and energy used on good stock is so much more rewarding that it's silly to compare the two outcomes. Newbees should be restricted to buying 1 gallon trees until they show the good sense to not buy stock of grafted, inverse taper, too-many-individuals-crammed-into-one-pot, pretty canopies that cover useless lower wood, ad infinitum. Many people will not develop "the eye" to see the good in a tree, even in their lifetime in bonsai, much less early in the process. Learn to shop. Practice on cheap. Throw away bad choices. There will be plenty of opportunities to learn tricks on small stock that can be up-sized, later. Looking for a quick way to good, big bonsai? Perish the thought.

 

[Vance Wood]

In short: If you don't have a vision for the tree and know how you are going to achieve it, you are better off buying a tree you can see the future in it and know you have the ability to do so. So--here is the conundrum, you don't gain new skills without taking chances. Stepping in a pile of manure and thinking it is gold may not be the solution and the only one you are fooling is yourself. Take the time to educate yourself before you share what you think is great information when it is only in the fantasy stage.

 

[Forsoothe!]

My point was to start small and therefore cheap. In so doing, you can learn more because you can afford more failures. Learning is a volume enterprise. Do lots, learn some. Cheap is also painless.