luvinthemountains multi-trunk chinese elm

[luvinthemountains]

Generally in the past I have left my deciduous bonsai alone in the winter, but this year I managed to make a good child storage space that rarely freezes, so I am trying some mid-winter structural pruning on this elm.

Before...



After...

 

[BobbyLane]

Nice work, youre certainly not shy with the hacking back I like it
Now to let it grow back out and repeat! going to be a nice, natural looking tree. Looks like some nice flare developing too.

 

[luvinthemountains]

Nice work, youre certainly not shy with the hacking back I like it
Now to let it grow back out and repeat! going to be a nice, natural looking tree. Looks like some nice flare developing too.

Thanks, Bobby. Yes, I do get a little excited with the pruning saw, but in the long run the tree will be much the better for it. Encouragement coming from you, I'll take it!

As for the root base, I was discouraged about the ground layer at first but poking around yesterday found some signs of rooting at the level I needed. (Old Thread) That was exciting to be sure. I am guessing when I take it out of this deep pot I will find it has bridged in places, but even a few roots will be progress!

 

[BobbyLane]

Thanks, Bobby. Yes, I do get a little excited with the pruning saw, but in the long run the tree will be much the better for it. Encouragement coming from you, I'll take it!

As for the root base, I was discouraged about the ground layer at first but poking around yesterday found some signs of rooting at the level I needed. (Old Thread) That was exciting to be sure. I am guessing when I take it out of this deep pot I will find it has bridged in places, but even a few roots will be progress!

The base reminds me of one I had, I didnt bother layering, but in the beginning I did make cuts around the base and packed in some spag moss, which didnt result in much. later in the thread you can see where I just went hard in cutting back the thick roots, I think over time if id have kept it, I would have continued to improve the nebari by hitting it hard n there, elms can take it. I was quite happy with the flare it was developing by the last images, and the top dressing of moss was to help induce more roots.

English Elm Shohin

Ulmus Procera Hi all, this is another recent project im working on with the native Elm tree. cheap nursery grown material. I only ever saw a Shohin sized tree in the material and it was reduced straight away 2016-05-29_05-28-54 by Bobby Lane, on Flickr 2016-05-29_05-30-35 by Bobby Lane, on...

www.bonsainut.com

one of the root cuttings from that tree has grown into this, https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/english-elm-root-cutting.51138/

so keep your root cuttings!

 

[Paradox]

Generally in the past I have left my deciduous bonsai alone in the winter, but this year I managed to make a good child storage space that rarely freezes, so I am trying some mid-winter structural pruning on this elm.

So how did the ground layer on this go or is it still in progress?
I have a decent sized one I want to air layer so wondering how yours went

 

[luvinthemountains]

So how did the ground layer on this go or is it still in progress?
I have a decent sized one I want to air layer so wondering how yours went

I will post an update when I repot it, likely in spring 2024. I want to focus this year on branch development while the ground layer gets some more time to do its magic. One thing I will say - this tree was particularly difficult because of the crevices between the fat roots. This layer would have been much easier to accomplish further up the trunk, where things are less complex.

 

[luvinthemountains]

Late spring cleanup work on this elm. It grew a lot again this year.



First I did a rough cutback and thinning to see the structure.



Here it is with work finished for now. I pulled a lot of inner leaves, pruned back to 1-3 nodes in most places, shortened the subtrunk in the back a little further, and wired out a couple of low branches that might or might not get cut off later.