Sapling Division: n8y's Korean Hornbeams

[n8]

Thanks for the contest organization, @Kanorin!

Purchased these before seeing the forest contest threads with the intent of putting together a group, so this is serendipitous. These are from Maruyama's nursery in Sacramento and are one, two and three year saplings. I think I might grab a few more, but we'll start with this group. I like the idea of including the double trunker on the left into the group.

Also have plenty of two-year Japanese maple seedlings for another sapling entry and European Hornbeam seeds stratifying for a seedling entry.

 

[n8]

Potted these up together in a group today. I had originally planned to put them directly into the intended final pot, but ultimately decided to build a box of similar dimensions to the pot so I could better use a wire grid and to also give the trees some more depth because they were coming out of nursery cans. I have eight trunks in six cans and wasn't sure how many I would use in the group arrangement, so I cleaned up the roots for all of them. Here is the box and the grid I used to wire the trees into position, along with the trees. I did a little pruning and wiring two weeks ago.

View attachment 358818

Checking out roots and removing soil. Maruyama grows most of their pre-bonsai in mix of pumice and rocks. He really likes Osmocote and will also sometimes use styrofoam peanuts for a drainage layer (especially with his azaleas). I found a little styrofoam, but most pumice and rock.... and lots of Osmocote.



Here's a root group shot after I removed everything I thought I could get away with:



And here they are wired onto the grid:



Wire the grid to the box:




And this is my arrangement... for now. (I also like Osmocote.)

 

[n8]

If you noticed, I only used seven of the eight trunks. The leftover didn't really seem to fit with this group. It did, however have great radial roots, so I cleaned up the base, wired it to a tile and put it into its own grow box.

My first thought after completing the group was that it needs some more tiny trunks. I'll airlayer some of the big hornbeam trunks I'm growing out and see if I can get some little pinners to add to these seven for some more perspective. The two bigger trunks on the right side will also be but down a but. Primary tree is intended to be the large trunk on the left side.

 

[n8]

Well, I lost the primary double trunk tree over the summer as well as the small tree on the left. Luckily I have lots more small hornbeams available to reconfigure this in spring 2022.

 

[n8]

Pic might not show it off, but getting some nice reds and oranges.

 

[n8]

I helped my teacher repot some of his bigguns today and he loaded me up with pro-tips to get this group reconfigured. Put this new plan into action this afternoon.

Roots are looking great on most of the OG trees (one is sketchy), plus I added three more to make up for the losses. I think some even smaller twiggy trees around the back help to bring this home.

Still bummed I lost the cool double trunk...

https://imgur.com/a/dgIxtfq

 

[n8]

Leafed out. Skinny front right tree is the one with the poor roots. Pushed out some leaves, but I don't think it'll make it. I think I need a couple very skinny, small trees to go in the back, too.

 

[n8]

Weak tree in the front right was slow to leaf out, but is going to make it.

Did some foliage cutback on all other trees yesterday. Looking and growing good.

 

[n8]

Fall updates:

https://imgur.com/lc6mWhU

 

[n8]

Little cutback and a bit of wiring this afternoon.

 

[Kanorin]

Looking good!

 

[n8]

Attempts to air layer tiny branches off my other hornbeams or strike cuttings have failed, but Maruyama had a handful of one-year KHs in Sacramento last weekend and I picked up six. I added four here to build some perspective. Hopefully they all survive the root reduction to fit them into their little slots in the group.

https://imgur.com/a/gTlzlz1

 

[n8]

All four new additions have survived after each being crammed into a little pocket of soil. Yay.

Took quite a while for this to leaf out this year. Weird NorCal weather...

Did a little bit of trimming today.

 

[n8]

Needs a haircut.

https://imgur.com/a/44y2l8V

 

[n8]

End of summer look. Hoping to get a little color in the next few weeks as we're actually tapering into fall instead of going from 105 to 60 in the last week of October.

 

[Shogun610]

End of summer look. Hoping to get a little color in the next few weeks as we're actually tapering into fall instead of going from 105 to 60 in the last week of October.

View attachment 511181

9 trees right?
Okay so , some feedback.. I really enjoy the color of the pot and how you’ve developed the trees.
However , I think it would be a useful exercise to repot them with more sporadic patterns.
In your spare time , take note of what tree is largest to smallest , and build subgroups that way. using a quarter , dime and penny to represent the sizing , toss them randomly onto a table (read/learned this in a Hagedorn blog and will apply similar fashion to a larch forest next spring).
This concept has helped me on forests since then. Yours is a bit too symmetrical and planned out which is the hard part of a forest. Try using depth and sizing , wile also grouping biggest and 2nd biggest with subgroups of 3-5 to get more randomness like a chain of islands. Classic guys like my teacher or even Mauro like pyramidal , of having prominent tree in center and subservient trees flowing to right and left in different planes of foreground.
I like to have them more differentiated by grouping in a flow right to left or left to right by varying degrees of heigh and angle.
Also I think you could go to a shallower pot in future too. Thanks for listening

 

[n8]

Thanks for the feedback @Shogun610 -- I appreciate that you took the time.

We're at 11 trees now and the reason they're all not clearly visible is due to the layout, which needs improvement. We used a pyramidal plan during layout, which became difficult to execute in practice. I want to try again with Hagedorn's coin tosses. I saw his post on forests, too, and immediately wanted to use it on my compositions. The four very small hornbeams that were added next year also were not so much as thought out, but shoved into wherever I could find an available pocket of soil. Looking forward to reworking the layout in March.

As far as the shallower pot, as much as I'd like to, I have accepted the fact that I will not have the bandwidth (in my work days anyway) to care for trees in shallow containers. The Central Valley is punishing in the summer and I want the buffer of a deeper container on my side. That said, I do have a slightly shallower pot in mind for this group.

 

[Shogun610]

Thanks for the feedback @Shogun610 -- I appreciate that you took the time.

We're at 11 trees now and the reason they're all not clearly visible is due to the layout, which needs improvement. We used a pyramidal plan during layout, which became difficult to execute in practice. I want to try again with Hagedorn's coin tosses. I saw his post on forests, too, and immediately wanted to use it on my compositions. The four very small hornbeams that were added next year also were not so much as thought out, but shoved into wherever I could find an available pocket of soil. Looking forward to reworking the layout in March.

As far as the shallower pot, as much as I'd like to, I have accepted the fact that I will not have the bandwidth (in my work days anyway) to care for trees in shallow containers. The Central Valley is punishing in the summer and I want the buffer of a deeper container on my side. That said, I do have a slightly shallower pot in mind for this group.

You could always go shallower and use a bed of pumice stones in a flat or something, or set on ground on hotter days .. also with the moss growth it would also help. I’ll be interested to see how you rework it. This book has also been huge as a reading supplement.

 

[n8]

Morning sun after rare fall rain.

 

[Kanorin]

Coming along nicely! Is that the front in the picture directly above?