How exactly do you develop good taper?

[Harunobu]

Those seemed to have the thickest trunk for their size, had some movement in the trunk as well. Maybe I should look at some tall more mature trees with low branches, then saw off 80% of the tree and see if it dies or not. Then dig it out when it has new growth.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Maybe I should look at some tall more mature trees with low branches, then saw off 80% of the tree and see if it dies or not. Then dig it out when it has new growth.

Now you're thinking bonsai!!! Cut a few back in the late winter and see what pops back. Always leave some foliage on pines/firs when you cut back.

And then, what grows back will include what you select as a new leader (or the next section of trunk which has taper and movement), and everything else is sacrifice branches. This is done most quickly while the tree is in the ground.

Repeat until you get a trunk you like...then dig it up and move on to developing branches.

 

[Klytus]

I would be careful as Bonsaist in the making often get a slew of advise from well meaning people with no artistic ability.

 

[treebeard55]

... often get a slew of advise from well meaning people with no artistic ability.

Klytus, I think you need to specify just which pieces of advice in this thread reflect "no artistic ability," in your estimation, and why. Otherwise, your statement, as phrased, sounds like a put-down of everyone else, and makes you look like a troll.

 

[Smoke]

I would be careful as Bonsaist in the making often get a slew of advise from well meaning people with no artistic ability.

The most brilliant thing said to date......

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

I would be careful as Bonsaist in the making often get a slew of advise from well meaning people with no artistic ability.

100% true...I tell new members to look at the trees of the person giving advise...it will help you determine how long to stand there, or how fast to run.

 

[Klytus]

I was thinking of the dorm.

Here we are,the thinking of Professor H.W. van OS.

http://www.english.uva.nl/start.cfm

 

[Alain BERTRAND]

I have been (trying to) developping taper on pine for about ten years. Actually, I came to think that the most cumbersome characteristics of pine for that is not lack of bad budding (it can be taken care by growing in advance a substitute branch with small internodes) but the very slow pace to which cuts heals.

I know of only two way to get taper on pines :
sacrifice branchs or leader substitution, or a mix of the two, that is you have the choice between many relatively small scars or a very big one.

Here are some pictures of some material I am growing, most of them are 8-10 year old seedlings, unfortunately, I thinks my pics are probably more informative by the failure they show than for the good points

First : sacrifice branches only

This one has really an impressive taper, with a base of about 12cm large. To bad the movement of the trunk is rather poor.



Even with sacrifice branchs, I couldn't do without a top cut.

Mix of the two technics. Numerous small low branchs and big leader (180 cm tall when cut)

.
Typical healing (or rather lack of thereof) one year after the cut.

It seems to me that using cut paste on the lips of the scar does accelerate the initial speed of healing.

 

[Alain BERTRAND]

Leader substitution only.

Leader substitution only on a JBP.
The first leader was cut 6 years ago at the low red arrow level, it is now almost completely healed (it shouldn't have taken that long even for a pine, but the tree was in the ground and growing rather slowly compared to what it was doing in a pot). The second leader top red arrow) will be cut next summer.

Then least and worst, a P. sylverstris I try to grow in chokkan (formal upright). It has the same age as the pine of the first pic, it is only 6-7 times slimmer

 

[Klytus]

I'm thinking torniquation before lopping off your possibilities could result in less pucker.

 

[Harunobu]

I think that in the Japanese tradition a tree only has to look good from angle so that a huge ugly scar doesn't matter as long as you can't see it from the front.

But I rather have a tree without such a scar. Can't you rewound it at the edges? And a torniquation has to create a wire mark first exactly at the point you want to cut it? This means it has to be on at least for one growing season, right?

What about the angle of the cut?

 

[Klytus]

There is another possibility i have considered,that of hedging supplies.

I see several UK retailers offer cell grown or transplanted,sometimes barerooted,young trees.
Several Conifers such as Pinus Sylvestris,Pinus Nigra and the like.
Not many actual images,descriptions such as two year old 20 to 30 cm etc.

These are quite modestly priced and perhaps worth experimenting with as fused trunk.

I imagine some slicing and binding would be necessary at the right time of next year to get them to graft,sharp knife and regular grafting materials.

Is it possible?
I don't really know.

I'm guessing hedging suppliers are not limited to the British Isles.

As for adding a Tourniquet it may offer something or it may offer nothing,one need not use wire as one could use cable ties.

 

[Harunobu]

I visited the forest again and the area I looked before all trees have their first branches 5 to 10 cm above the forest floor. Those with lower ones had their branches overgrown with moss and consequently almost no needles left on them.

But I found a different area of forest without the humus and 5 cm thick moss covering. Here everything besides the main timber-producing trees had been cleared. There was almost no humus on the ground and the area was more exposed to sun because a road ran right next to it.
The trees here had completely different grow patterns. Especially the smaller ones.

Some pictures, they are big so I didn't embed them this time.
http://i563.photobucket.com/albums/ss73/Harunobu/IMG_2355.jpg
http://i563.photobucket.com/albums/ss73/Harunobu/IMG_2356.jpg
http://i563.photobucket.com/albums/ss73/Harunobu/IMG_2357.jpg
http://i563.photobucket.com/albums/ss73/Harunobu/IMG_2359.jpg
http://i563.photobucket.com/albums/ss73/Harunobu/IMG_2362.jpg

They have many many branches, even needles still on the main stem. Their colour is also much lighter green. Overall these little trees look much healthier. But they are little. About 40 cm in height and not more than 1 cm in trunk diameter. Any similar trees in the same area exhibit the same behavior as all the other trees in the forest. No lower branches, long internodes, spindly, etc.

 

[Attila Soos]

These ones look much better, I especially like the one on the first photo. They are very long-term projects, of course, but suitable for developing bonsai material.

Now the only question is, do you know how to create bonsai material from seedlings. This is important, because developing bonsai material from seedlings is one thing, and creating bonsai from bonsai material is something completely different. Bonsai books teach you how to create bonsai from bonsai material. But there is no book that teaches you how to create bonsai material from seedlings. The techniques are very different.

 

[Harunobu]

I don't know anything special. If there's a book that goes through most techniques used to create bonsai from seedlings and very young plants I would buy it. But like you say, most bonsai books deal with what styles there are, how to maintain a finished bonsai, all that kind of stuff.

I wouldn't know exactly what the first steps would be. I also don't have any experience trying to grow bonsai. I have seen some stuff here about cutting off the sap stream to create new roots for good nebari. And the thread about the maples that was posted earlier. I don't know if I should cut the downward growing roots on these trees, or keep them for a few years first. Or apply the 'nebari tourniquet '. Or if I want to try to get even more new growth along the lower stem. So I am all ears.

 

[rockm]

The first step in growing seedlings into bonsai is to plant them in the ground and step back and let them mostly alone --for a decade or two...There is no real way to accelerate the process.

Once the trunk has reached the diameter you want --mame, shohin, or larger--you start to reduce the trunk--which usually entails removing a large portion of it.

You goal in trying to elminate scarring is unrealistic. Trees have to be reduced to make bonsai. If you apply pinching and tip pruning only to seedlings, ,will never develop into anything worthwhile and you won't get any appreciable backbudding closer to the trunk to work with. Hard pruning and chops promote massive backbudding closer in which can be exploited into tighter branches and twigging. Without agressive pruning, you're mostly left with weak growth at the ends of branches...

The trick is to MINIMIZE scarring in reducing a trunk. That can be done with seletive pruning and "escape" branches that heal scars relatively quickly. However, that is pretty far down the road.

 

[treebeard55]

As Attila said, much better potential in the new pictures!

For some good guidelines on developing two-needle pines for eventual bonsai use, I can recommend this link: http://www.evergreengardenworks.com/pines2.htm.

Brent focuses on Japanese black pine, but the principles should apply to other two-needle pines. In fact, I'm trying them with Austrian pine (Pinus nigra), since JBP is not quite hardy in a pot in my area.

 

[Attila Soos]

The first step in growing seedlings into bonsai is to plant them in the ground and step back and let them mostly alone --for a decade or two...There is no real way to accelerate the process.

Wait a minute. Leaving it alone for a decade would be a big mistake. When growing pine stock from young plants, there are some very important aspects that one needs to keep in mind.

1. Induce the growth of as many new branches as possible, starting as close to the nebari as possible, and all the way up.

2. From an early stage, you need to determine the final height of your bonsai.

3. Depending on #2, select the branches that you will possibly use in the final design. Select more than you need, so that you will have more flexibility. When growing these select branches, DO NOT let the foliage get away from the trunk. If you do, those branches will become useless. These branches should have foliage pads on them starting very close to the trunk.

4. Mark the braches that you will NOT use in the final design. You can let these grow mostly unhindered, being sacrifice branches. At the end, they will become jin and shari. They are the ones that will create your taper. Growing them totally unhindered is not quite true. The lower ones should be longer, and the higher ones should be shorter.

5. You need to root-prune them, but not more often than every 3 years. But don't wait much longer than that.

6. You need to scar, carve, wire the trunk, to create character. This is, in itself, a work that takes a lot of experience, because you need to know how the affetcted area will look after many years. Otherwise, you are just shooting in the dark.

7. There are other considerations to keep in mind: reverse taper, spokewheel pattern, manipulating the engergy of the growth (weak branches vs. strong branches),etc. They all will affect what you do.

There are many more things to consider. Growing bonsai stock from conifers is a lengthy and complicated affair, and it is NOT FOR THE BEGINNERS. If you still decide to do it as a beginner, be prepared to fail many times, before you get it right. But once in a while, just like the blind chicken, you will find something.

 

[Klytus]

Never have i heard of the blind chicken.

Whilst crossing the road today there was this blind man and his dog,waiting on the traffic island for the lights to change a lady asked me if i had heard the blind man tell his dog to move to the left.
She said she had never heard of such a thing.
Remarkable.

Pines are great and one needs not wait a lifetime to get stuck in as there are always more to be had.

Something new to do.

 

[Harunobu]

Shouldn't I try to create nebari foremost? If so, I hear layering new radial roots is hard on pines and may take up to 5 years. Should I try it anyway or should I cut away all roots that don't contribute to nebari? Or should I let it grow for 3 years and then work on the roots?
Of course I don't know what the roots right now look like yet.

As for budding new branches. Can I just cut out the candles/tips in spring? Or do I need to cut back branches back to just 1 grow node? I guess I should keep the apex for now. Maybe bend it away to the side and make another branch the future apex.

If I understand correctly I can collect both now and in spring.


So the big difference with deciduous trees is that I have to set the final structure in place already as you can't grow out a new apex and new branches out of nothing, right?