Hey all. So, got a Tamarack here, American larch (Larix laricina). I bought it from a nursery this past summer, not particularly knowing what I was going to do with it. I was dying to work on a tamarack, and this one was fat and a decent deal. Then I kind of stared at it for a number of months. It was originally probably around 8 feet tall, quite straight, lacking much taper. It came to me that probably one of the only ways to make this an interesting tree was to do some serious carving.
The idea is to create a large 'jin spire' of sorts, a tree in nature that experienced some severe hardship and most of the trunk died back but a new branch grew to replace the dead trunk. I am going to wire upwards one of the remaining branches to grow a new trunk growing more or less parallel to the deadwood, with branches intermingling with the 'spire'.
I did all the carving over a couple days with basically a trunk splitter, jin pliers, and a utility knife. Don't own much in the way of wood carving tools. But it definitely needs further work. Would like to get my hands on a Graham Potter style power carving tool to put in the detail that the deadwood needs. I've never treated deadwood before and I need to pick up supplies for preserving the wood. So, lime sulphur, possibly ink of some sort for color, and I would like to apply a wood hardener as well. It's pretty important that I preserve the wood as best I can, given how integral it is to the design, so if anyone could point me in the right direction product wise that would be really helpful.
Nebari, it has some pretty gnarly surface roots. i did some pretty intense root work on this tree in the fall, without ever taking it out of the pot. The nebari were buried well under the soil and the roots looked like they were very very angry at the pot. One root was growing back to the trunk from the edge of the pot and growing in circles around the base of the trunk, basically beginning to girdle it. So I think this tree will be very very happy to be repotted when the time comes.
Pictures could be better, but they'll do for now. Feedback welcome!
The idea is to create a large 'jin spire' of sorts, a tree in nature that experienced some severe hardship and most of the trunk died back but a new branch grew to replace the dead trunk. I am going to wire upwards one of the remaining branches to grow a new trunk growing more or less parallel to the deadwood, with branches intermingling with the 'spire'.
I did all the carving over a couple days with basically a trunk splitter, jin pliers, and a utility knife. Don't own much in the way of wood carving tools. But it definitely needs further work. Would like to get my hands on a Graham Potter style power carving tool to put in the detail that the deadwood needs. I've never treated deadwood before and I need to pick up supplies for preserving the wood. So, lime sulphur, possibly ink of some sort for color, and I would like to apply a wood hardener as well. It's pretty important that I preserve the wood as best I can, given how integral it is to the design, so if anyone could point me in the right direction product wise that would be really helpful.
Nebari, it has some pretty gnarly surface roots. i did some pretty intense root work on this tree in the fall, without ever taking it out of the pot. The nebari were buried well under the soil and the roots looked like they were very very angry at the pot. One root was growing back to the trunk from the edge of the pot and growing in circles around the base of the trunk, basically beginning to girdle it. So I think this tree will be very very happy to be repotted when the time comes.
Pictures could be better, but they'll do for now. Feedback welcome!
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