fourteener
Omono
Here's my work the last couple of days done with Peter Tea. It's got great bones. Lots of Shari to be found as it continues its development.
Monster Procumbens
- Thread starter fourteener
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chicago1980
Omono
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That looks great!
Tycoss
Chumono
Really great lines and base. I can't believe it's not yamadori!
defra
Masterpiece
Nice!
Got pics from the other side too ?
Got pics from the other side too ?
fourteener
Omono
Here it is after some heavy fertilization and new summer growth.
defra
Masterpiece
Looking good thats some nice green foliage
Almosth time to thin it out some ?
Almosth time to thin it out some ?
fourteener
Omono
I just did a mass thinning of foliage this spring. Left only the good growing tips and this is what happened. I have tough winters and would like to repot this tree in the spring. Because of those two factors, I'll let it grow as much foliage as it can thus year.
Also the foliage isn't strong enough yet to send out long extensions. That tells me it's still not real vigorous. Junipers maintain health through their foliage. Keep taking it away and the tree will make you pay for that.
Victorim
Omono
Wise words. Love the tree.
Giga
Masterpiece
Very nice tree, can't wait to see it in a few years
music~maker
Shohin
What are your future design plans? Have you considered losing that large lower left branch? I've seen this thread a couple times now, and my first thought is always that I'd want to remove at least that one, and possibly both of the lower branches and then re-build the trunk from there. You'd get a hell of a jin and an interesting carving project out of the deal. It would also tighten up the scale quite a bit. I know everyone likes cascading branches, but I think this would look excellent as more of an informal upright with that trunk.
Just a thought. It's a neat tree regardless of which path you choose. I don't see all that many procumbens with trunks this nice. The nice thing about these is that there's absolutely no rush given how slowly they grow.
Vin
Imperial Masterpiece
True indeed. I have paid for it many times over. More recently my BVF Time Capsule tree. Someone revived the thread accidently and I started removing foliage and wiring it when I knew it probably wasn't a good idea. I lost the most important branch and I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose the tree completely as it has been in a steady decline.
fourteener
Omono
Many Options are on the table. This tree has come a long way in a short time. I live in a constant state of trying to look for the smaller, better tree. At this point I am trying to see what my options are for something different. An interesting pot or stone might make the tree more interesting with those branches. I'm going to try at least a few things before I do my usual thing.
As I begin to see what veins of life I have on the trunk and that branch is also a determining factor. If I can make it interesting then it's staying, if it is relegated to being a long boring branch, removal is more of an option.
music~maker
Shohin
If the pot it's in is too restrictive, a quick and gentle up-pot followed by a couple years of recovery can make a huge difference. If it's declining going into winter, you don't have much to lose. With these I tend to only make big moves when they are very strong, and otherwise just make small redirects followed by long periods of growth, with the goal being to get them growing in a very balanced way. Either way, I grow a lot more than I prune.
I would actually recommend that you leave it in that pot until you've gotten the development further along. It's already situated nicely, and these can go quite a few years between re-pots (usually 4-5 easily). Use the solid foundation it's sitting in as an opportunity to really get the branch structure in place that you want. Once you've really nailed the major branches and some ramification, then start thinking about other pots. I'd probably go another couple of years in this pot, then probably lift the root ball and clean it up just a bit, then re-pot in the same or equivalent size pot and go another 2-3 years. If you try to get too fancy with a pot that requires root reduction, you'll set the tree back and branch & trunk development will take much, much longer.
When I get a few minutes I'll photoshop you a virt of how I think it could develop. fwiw, there's no scenario I can imagine right now where the tree looks better with that big branch than without it. For me, it completely breaks the illusion of scale.
music~maker
Shohin
Ok, this is pretty quick and dirty, but here's what jumped out at me when I first saw this.
Something along these lines wouldn't be too hard to achieve. Mostly all you'd need to do to get it there is to lose those two big branches (which you wouldn't have to do just now anyway) and then just let it slowly fill in, and occasional (very occasionally) prune it to the canopy. Mostly you'd just water it and watch it grow.
You could even build more of a trunk out of that apex if you wanted to by simply letting it run while keeping everything else in check. I think this is roughly a 6-10 year project to get there.
As an example, here's one of mine that I've been building from scratch. If you follow the various links I posted in that thread, you can follow it all the way back to what it looked like in 2010.
That's essentially how I would treat this one once I had dealt with those big branches. Let it grow and fill in that beautiful frame. Mine's just about ready for a full styling after seven years of balanced growth. Yours has the potential to be a much better tree with that trunk as the starting point.
A. Gorilla
Omono
In the words of Tuco Salamanca from Breaking Bad, that tree is "TIGHT...TIGHT TIGHT!"
Pachycaul
Mame
Arrrgh @fourteener, IMO, what you have in that tree could be called "an embarrassment of riches!" Biggest problems I see with it are "where do I go from here, and where's the front?" Good stuff!
Ok, this is pretty quick and dirty, but here's what jumped out at me when I first saw this.
Something along these lines wouldn't be too hard to achieve. Mostly all you'd need to do to get it there is to lose those two big branches (which you wouldn't have to do just now anyway) and then just let it slowly fill in, and occasional (very occasionally) prune it to the canopy. Mostly you'd just water it and watch it grow.
You could even build more of a trunk out of that apex if you wanted to by simply letting it run while keeping everything else in check. I think this is roughly a 6-10 year project to get there.
As an example, here's one of mine that I've been building from scratch. If you follow the various links I posted in that thread, you can follow it all the way back to what it looked like in 2010.
That's essentially how I would treat this one once I had dealt with those big branches. Let it grow and fill in that beautiful frame. Mine's just about ready for a full styling after seven years of balanced growth. Yours has the potential to be a much better tree with that trunk as the starting point.
Yes...
But I would try to keep the other branch ad put a bend in it?
music~maker
Shohin
Yes, I could definitely see that. Truth be told, if this were mine, I'd get rid of the big branch first, and then see how it goes for a while. The bend is a great idea.
I tend to work these very slowly. The remaining longer branch definitely changes the scale of the tree (vs removing it), so I'd probably play around with scaling up the apex for a while to balance it out. Worst case, that would be work I would want to do anyway even if I was going to remove the second branch.
But yeah, that second branch does have some nice enough ramification to at least give it a chance first.
Either way, this is a tree that I'd love to work on.
