Sapling Division: Gabler's Sweetgum Forest Planting

[Gabler]

A quick update. Picture taken from the back.

 

[Cajunrider]

A quick update. Picture taken from the back.

View attachment 443874

Very nice

 

[Gabler]

Very nice

Thanks. I’m pleased at the vigorous growth in the same spring I collected the trees.

 

[Cajunrider]

I haven’t been real active on here lately, because I’m sitting for the Delaware Bar. Today is day two, so I decided to sign on here for a few minutes this morning to calm my nerves a bit before I take the next part of the test. To be clear, I’m still taking care of my trees. I’m just not online as much.

Good luck Counselor!

 

[Gabler]

Good luck Counselor!

Thanks! I found out I passed in late October. I’m working in civil defense, mostly car accidents. It’s not a top firm or anything, but I’m not working more than fifty hours per week, my boss is a good guy, and the healthcare benefits are decent, so things are pretty good overall.

 

[Cajunrider]

Thanks! I found out I passed in late October. I’m working in civil defense, mostly car accidents. It’s not a top firm or anything, but I’m not working more than fifty hours per week, my boss is a good guy, and the healthcare benefits are decent, so things are pretty good overall.

When you get to be good in bonsai, will your hours here be billable?

 

[Gabler]

Starting to get some fall color. I tried to get an angle that shows the gradient from yellow to purple, all on the same tree.

 

[Gabler]

I got lots of vigorous growth last year, so I cut the trees back hard this spring. For some reason, the tree toward the right in the back had a lot of dieback over the winter, so I cut it back to live branches at the base.



As a side note, I’m noticing that sweetgum has what I’d call an all-or-nothing growth habit. It’s either extremely vigorous or it dies back hard. That makes it tricky to figure out when to give them gas and when to step on the brakes.

 

[Gabler]

Starting to leaf out. This picture is from the back.



You may notice one of the trees is looking dead. The top was definitely dead, so I cut it back to what seemed to be a live, upward-growing branch. It started to wake and then stalled before the buds opened. I’ll leave it for now. I have another sweetgum in a pot that I’ll add in a few years after it’s grown out a bit.

They grow like weeds, except in containers. That might be the reason you don’t tend yo see many as bonsai. Then again, it could be a lack of skill on my part.

As for the arrangement of the trees, I’m liking the right side of the arrangement (pictured to the left above). I’ll likely shift things around a little on the left side (pictured to the right above) in a year or two when I repot.

 

[Gabler]

I left some shoots to grow long and thicken up, but I cut most of it back to keep things compact and promote some movement and branching.

 

[Gabler]

 

[Gabler]

I got a slightly better picture today.

 

[Gabler]

 

[Gabler]

Since one of the trees died last winter, I collected another this spring to replace it. I picked a tree that had black fall colors last year. This year, I kept it in the shade because it was newly collected, and it's therefore more of a purple color, with some orange toward the bottom where it was most shaded.

 

[Gabler]

 

[Gabler]

It was time to move the forest to a slab. I have a handful of these conglomerate stones that my neighbor previously used as stepping stones on a pathway, and I picked one that's the right size.



It had a good rootball, which I then cut up into three chunks to arrange the forest around the rocks sticking up in the middle of the conglomerate.



The composition looked like this, once I had placed the main trees.



Then, I trimmed it back just a tiny bit more and added some spicebush seedlings to the back to create a bit of an understory. Toward the front, there is also a little seedling which appears to be a willow oak, although I'm not sure. I left it there for now. If it doesn't work with the rest of the composition, I'll remove it.

 

[Gabler]

I increased the brightness a bit for that last photo, since it's a little hard to see.

 

[Cmd5235]

Did you prune off the terminal buds?

 

[Gabler]

Did you prune off the terminal buds?

Yeah. Each year I let them grow out, and then, in the spring, I prune them back to the first two buds, where the internodes won't be too long. I started out building trunk movement, and now I'm starting to build branching.

 

[Cmd5235]

Yeah. Each year I let them grow out, and then, in the spring, I prune them back to the first two buds, where the internodes won't be too long. I started out building trunk movement, and now I'm starting to build branching.

Have you lost any branches from the removal of the buds? I’ve always let mine grow out, only cutting during the spring. I haven’t lost a branch yet, but I know others have.