Larix x eurolepis 12-04

[AlainK]

Our club will display a few trees at a local plant fair this weekend, and we will make demos (repotting, wiring, etc). I won't display any of mine (or maybe 1 or 2) because some members have really great trees, but I'll post photos.

I have this larch from a batch of 2-yr-old seedlings that I bought in the spring of 2012, one of the worst in the dozen or so that I still have in pond baskets. I might bring it to make a first styling instead of staying in the rain doing nothing.

I already have an idea, and with a help from my friends, who knows, I might end up with something in a style that I don't have so far...

 

[Tentakelaertje]

If this is the bottom quality of the batch, the other stuff is GOOD!
It reminds me of the pines in the forests here.

 

[petegreg]

I already have an idea... I might end up with something in a style that I don't have so far...

Flat top?

 

[AlainK]

Flat top?

I had thought of that, but I have a couple of Taxodium distichum that I think are better suited for that kind of style, although a friend who lives in the mountains told me that isolated specimens of Larch often look like that.

No, I think I'll go for a "thunder-stricken" tall tree, pruning the live branches very close to the trunk and wiring them downward. A very classical option...

 

[AlainK]

Since it was crappy material, I tried to work on it during a two-day exhibit at a local plant fair where we display some of our trees each year, the best ones, and also some we work on it "unplugged".

I didn't take photos while" working" on it, and the others were too busy answering the questions of the passers-by, but here it was when I got back home :



Then, ...



And today. The pot is 15 cm wide (5.5 inches) and the tree, from soil level to the top is about 35 cm (about 14 inches) :



We're lucky because here, it's been kind of a semi-tropical climate in the past two weeks : minimum 15°C at night, above 25°C in the afternoon, with heavy showers of rain in late afternoon.

Fortunately so far we didn't have hail that stripped between 30% and 90% of the wineyards in the Bordeaux regions, and I'm safe from sudden floodings since I live about 50 metres (5 yards or so) from the Loire river banks, about 100 metres (95 yards) down south.

I live in "rue Monteloup". "Monter" means to go up, walk up", and "loup" (from latin "lupus") is "wolf". the tradition says that in times of harsh weather, when the wolves couldn't find a prey, they would walk up to where I live to find something to eat.

What's in a name ? ...