If these were yours?

[elliott]

yeah, chop it off and make a sumo. let a leader grow over a few years to make an apex and close the wound. In the mean time, graft seedlings at the base or airlayer to get roots. you can have a fat little sumo with great taper and nebari in 10 yrs. A show stopper. sounds like a long time, but you have poor material rite now and those 10 yrs are going to go by anyways, so might as well have a nice tree at the end.

 

[Smoke]

yeah, chop it off and make a sumo. let a leader grow over a few years to make an apex and close the wound. In the mean time, graft seedlings at the base or airlayer to get roots. you can have a fat little sumo with great taper and nebari in 10 yrs. A show stopper. sounds like a long time, but you have poor material rite now and those 10 yrs are going to go by anyways, so might as well have a nice tree at the end.

Which tree do you speak of?

 

[tmmason10]

Another nice one Al. I think I'm going to get a trident this spring to work on in my classes. Yours have inspired me to work with the species.

 

[Smoke]

Little update on the semi cascade trident. Took some leaves off to see where I am. Pruned back some thick shoots and took off some pointing straight up.

Tomorrow I will wire it. Still pushing new shoots at the top from a prune back a couple weeks ago.

 

[barrosinc]

got some updates???

 

[Vin]

Read your very first post only and decided to play around with Paint. Came up with this (don't laugh) and seen post 64. Pretty close I'd say.

 

[Smoke]

Last year this time I lost two tridents. Both were due to snails. I had an army of snails that I wasn't prepared for. I had too many trees on the benches and too many tridents on the ground in baskets. The snails would attack just after dark and strip every leaf of all the trees. I jumped into action and tried to move things around to area I thought didn't have snails, snail bait the whole nine yards. All the trees but the two made it thru although I lost lots of branches due to the leaves never returning. The small branches just withered and died. I will be writing about this soon as some of those trees are now leafing out and I will be able to tell what is dead and alive.

The semi cascade was one that made it thru and mostly because it was in a bonsai pot and on the bench off the ground. Some snails made it up the legs and attacked on the benches but it was a much lighter attack. here is the tree today. Much more ramified now, should be twice this, damn snails. I was prepared this year. Have not had one snail as I eradicated them all year long.

 

[Mellow Mullet]

It may sound like a silly question, but what kind of snails do they have out there in California? Just curious. I have trouble with slugs on my lettuce sometimes, but never have them attack my trees.

John

Oh, I love the trident. I have been studying your blog and have been trying out your techniques. Thanks for sharing.

 

[edprocoat]

Last year this time I lost two tridents. Both were due to snails. I had an army of snails that I wasn't prepared for. I had too many trees on the benches and too many tridents on the ground in baskets. The snails would attack just after dark and strip every leaf of all the trees. I jumped into action and tried to move things around to area I thought didn't have snails, snail bait the whole nine yards. All the trees but the two made it thru although I lost lots of branches due to the leaves never returning. The small branches just withered and died. I will be writing about this soon as some of those trees are now leafing out and I will be able to tell what is dead and alive.

The semi cascade was one that made it thru and mostly because it was in a bonsai pot and on the bench off the ground. Some snails made it up the legs and attacked on the benches but it was a much lighter attack. here is the tree today. Much more ramified now, should be twice this, damn snails. I was prepared this year. Have not had one snail as I eradicated them all year long.View attachment 67715

Nice, I would wear YOUR pink thong to own a tree like that !

ed