I don't like my Ulmus minor

Cable

Omono
Messages
1,371
Reaction score
2,189
Location
Sheffield Village, Ohio
USDA Zone
6a
Here are a few options based on what we've talked about.

Cut down a little but leave as twin trunk:

2022-07-23 12.58.33a.jpg

Cut the second trunk down to a branch:

2022-07-23 12.58.33b.jpg

Air layer the second trunk off:

2022-07-23 12.58.33c.jpg
2022-07-23 12.58.33d.jpg
(I do think that's a pretty nice tree on it's own despite the lack of taper which seems less apparent)

Or pull the second trunk closer to the first (10 degrees).

2022-07-23 12.58.33e.jpg

I actually like that quit a bit.
 

ShadyStump

Imperial Masterpiece
Messages
5,980
Reaction score
9,986
Location
Southern Colorado, USA
USDA Zone
6a
👆 I'm in agreement with that suggestion, along with option 1.
I WANT to see this as a twin trunk, but that's a little harder for me after seeing what @rockm pointed out before. However I still think it's there if you can work some taper and movement into the one on the right, maybe "raise" the nebari a bit by ground layering.

I would make those cuts, then let it grow wild a couple years to add some girth to both trunks. That should help mitigate the bulges on the main trunk without doing surgery on them, and beef up the secondary trunk a bit.
 

penumbra

Imperial Masterpiece
Messages
9,421
Reaction score
16,033
Location
Front Royal, VA
USDA Zone
6
I don't like your tree either, but it can still be a great bonsai some day. Personally I would take the right trunk back to first grouping of leaves, take the top out of the left trunk, and ground layer to produce a higher nebari as suggested in the multiple posts above. Where I would part with the rest here, is that I would then let it run wild in either a grow box or pond pot for about three years and then re-visit it. Your mind could change many times in that period and you would have a totally different tree to work with. Sometimes I find the tree I didn't like turn into a tree I like very much.
 
Top Bottom