LG Chuhin Kotohime

[Cadillactaste]

Gorgeous tree...but that base! Hubba hubba...a big distraction for me personally. I absolutely love it.

 

[Lars Grimm]

Great job, it's developing nicely!



I wonder if @William N. Valavanis , David Easterbrook, or Suthin Sukolsovisit have found any tricks? They all have extraordinary Koto Hime specimens and severals decades of experience with Koto Hime.

During his first episode on the Asymmetry podcast Vojtilla mentioned that the orientation of buds transition from parallel to perpendicular in proportion with the length of the branches. From memory, I think he was talking about birch though. I have not investigated this idea yet, but planned to test it out this spring with Koto Hime and Shishigashira.

Ryan Neil makes a comment about how you want to remove as much of a stub between buds as possible so they are not pushed laterally. I had often left a small bit behind assuming it didn't matter, but I am trying to be more precise now.

 

[0soyoung]

Ryan Neil makes a comment about how you want to remove as much of a stub between buds as possible so they are not pushed laterally. I had often left a small bit behind assuming it didn't matter, but I am trying to be more precise now.

Maybe Kotohime behaves a bit differently, but I get wide angle branching on generic green a.p., Orange Dream, and generic green a. shirasawanum early season growth. Narrower angles result from May/Aug pruning. The existence of or the length of the stub has no bearing on it. It should also be noted that I'm talking about the growth from the most distal bud pair that is remaining.

It is fascinating to me how Ryan comes up with the most illogical stuff from time to time. There's a shoot of some thickness. It has opposite buds along its length. One cuts the stem above the node. How would the remaining node possibly grow to 'push the buds' apart?

 

[Lars Grimm]

Maybe Kotohime behaves a bit differently, but I get wide angle branching on generic green a.p., Orange Dream, and generic green a. shirasawanum early season growth. Narrower angles result from May/Aug pruning. The existence of or the length of the stub has no bearing on it. It should also be noted that I'm talking about the growth from the most distal bud pair that is remaining.

It is fascinating to me how Ryan comes up with the most illogical stuff from time to time. There's a shoot of some thickness. It has opposite buds along its length. One cuts the stem above the node. How would the remaining node possibly grow to 'push the buds' apart?

The way I interpreted it was that if there was a stub then the new terminal buds would have that stub in the way and there would be a limit to how narrow an angle there could be. If you cut it very close, then there would be more space for the buds to be angled closer together.

 

[Kanorin]

Really nice tree. I've got a young koto hime that I'm still growing the trunk on. I'm wondering if it would be a good idea or not to rub some of the buds off of it. I'm also wondering how rubbing the buds off compares with cutting some of the basal leaves off in the spring (as you do earlier in the thread). Do they accomplish the same goals or slightly different?

 

[Lars Grimm]

Really nice tree. I've got a young koto hime that I'm still growing the trunk on. I'm wondering if it would be a good idea or not to rub some of the buds off of it. I'm also wondering how rubbing the buds off compares with cutting some of the basal leaves off in the spring (as you do earlier in the thread). Do they accomplish the same goals or slightly different?

I think there is an argument for rubbing off the buds if you want stronger growth from the remaining buds. If you wait till they leaf out and remove them, then you are weakening the tree. Weakening the growth might be more advantageous in another cultivar where you want shorter nodes, but for this one I want to push out extensions to build some length.

 

[ConorDash]

The way I interpreted it was that if there was a stub then the new terminal buds would have that stub in the way and there would be a limit to how narrow an angle there could be. If you cut it very close, then there would be more space for the buds to be angled closer together.

This is what I understood it by as well. Which, if we simply remove all the bonsai knowledge, makes sense from a physics point of view, right? But good luck getting some scissors in to there to remove it... Maybe better off with a spike and kinda of stabbing the stub out of it.
I've a kotohime early in development, this thread is useful to me, hence the watching. I did not rub buds out early in the season, and I paid for it with many leaves! This winter I will be doing what you have done, Lars, to ensure its not too bushy and I dont have those same problems.

Also, with Beni Maiko, I tend to get quite wide angles with the growth from opposing buds. I have to wire them in a bit more. They perhaps grow to about 100 degrees apart, whereas I would want them much more acute, to about 70-80. But I dont get a protractor to measure , just going off my feeling and the way it looks.

 

[Lars Grimm]

This tree was due for a repotting due to limited percolation. My focus for this repot was to work on the root base. After removing from the pot, you can see there is a really nice fibrous root system, however, the nebari was a little unbalanced in places. There were roots growing in all the gaps, they just hadn't thickened up. Here are four shots around the nebari.

 

[Lars Grimm]

I decided to go for a wooden box to give the room a little more room to run and thicken up (2 steps forward, one step back). I also did three root grafts in places that were a little bare. Finally, a couple roots had a little die back where they had been originally chopped.





I had a few nicer roots that were a little high in the soil line. I used a shephard's crook wire to pull these down and tie to the underside of the box.

 

[Lars Grimm]

Here is the final tree in the box. My goal this year is to feed it vigorously to try and build out the nebari. I think I will also try and run a sacrificial branch to thicken out the secondary trunk as the transition at the chop site is a bit abrupt right now (the green color doesn't help). All of the major chop sites are now completely healed.

 

[james]

Great work, like where are going with this one.

Questions about the root grafting you are doing. Are the whips you used Koto Hime, or another cultivar? Bark color, shape looks like they may be standard Japanese maple? If so, what has your experience been? As likely to take? Final appearance of roots I imagine will resemble the mother tree? Or did you take cuttings from the mother tree earlier, and use them?

 

[Lars Grimm]

Great work, like where are going with this one.

Questions about the root grafting you are doing. Are the whips you used Koto Hime, or another cultivar? Bark color, shape looks like they may be standard Japanese maple? If so, what has your experience been? As likely to take? Final appearance of roots I imagine will resemble the mother tree? Or did you take cuttings from the mother tree earlier, and use them?

They are just standard japanese maple whips from Matt Ouwinga. The color is very similar and nothing that lime sulfur won't bleach. You shouldn't see much of them at all so there is no real concern.

 

[Darth Masiah]

They are just standard japanese maple whips. You shouldn't see much of them at all so there is no real concern.

"there is a great disturbance in the force"

 

[Hartinez]

This is a world class tree your building Lars. Beautiful work.