Sticks in a Pot: American Hornbeam

[amkhalid]

I am obsessed with yamadori but I have started to realize that the diversity of my collection is suffering because of this. Collected conifers have that "tough, dynamic" feeling, but I am lacking trees with that "delicate, graceful" feeling.

With this in mind, and inspired by a recent bonsai focus article, I bought a bunch of American Hornbeam seedlings and made a very basic forest planting. In nine years of bonsai I have never made a forest planting. I found it very challenging and time consuming (so many design considerations), but enjoyable.

Comments are appreciated. I have never worked with this species - hopefully the drastic root reduction won't be a problem.

Raw material (2-3 year old seedlings in one gallon cans)

Need lots of tie down points

Final product

Thanks for reading

 

[Beng]

Nice planting. Great start, must have been a lot of work to get them all in there.

 

[Victor52]

Wow looks great!

 

[Poink88]

I like it too. Great ideal for multiple tie down.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[RichKid]

Beautiful. How tall?

 

[BigDave]

Doesnt seem like your first

Comments are appreciated.

Well you have learned your lessons well, a nice layout

Well done

 

[amkhalid]

Thanks for the positive comments everyone. My friend/bonsai mentor has pointed out some problems which I wholly agree with. The 2nd and 3rd trunks are too parallel. And the three tree grouping needs something... perhaps a tiny cutting. I will address these issues once it is established.

Beautiful. How tall?

Roughly 50 cm. Here is a pic with something for scale (bottle was full this afternoon!).

For the record, this took me 6-8 hours to make. Damn, forests are a lot of work.

 

[jkd2572]

Wow! So much with so little. I think you have a talent with forests.

 

[Beng]

Thanks for the positive comments everyone. My friend/bonsai mentor has pointed out some problems which I wholly agree with. The 2nd and 3rd trunks are too parallel. And the three tree grouping needs something... perhaps a tiny cutting. I will address these issues once it is established.



Roughly 50 cm. Here is a pic with something for scale (bottle was full this afternoon!).

For the record, this took me 6-8 hours to make. Damn, forests are a lot of work.

Good points from your mentor. From your blog post in one of the pics of the side view I thought the planting would benefit from leaning the 2nd tree from the right more towards the viewer a bit. As it is now it breaks up the lines of a few of the trunks when viewed from the side. Great forest though, for a first planting of untrained material it's one of the best I've seen.
View attachment 32126

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Nice composition!

 

[amkhalid]

From your blog post in one of the pics of the side view I thought the planting would benefit from leaning the 2nd tree from the right more towards the viewer a bit.
View attachment 32126

I noticed this - completely agree. Good catch. It is an easy fix but for now I am just going to let it chill out and hope everything survives. Maybe in the summer I can start messing with it again if everything pans out. So many dimensions to a forest, it seems like it would be very hard to get everything dialed in the first time.

Thanks for the comments.

 

[Beng]

It has many more repots in its future I'm sure. You'll have time to contemplate a million alternatives over the next year. It will only get better and better I'm sure.

 

[Jason_mazzy]

Martin Sweeny has some nice American Hornbeams. How did you gget pointed into the hornbeam direction? To be honest I never really noticed them when walking around. Now I'm keeping my eyes peeled LOL.

 

[RichKid]

Very nice indeed. Inspirational as well. You don't always have to wait 20 years to have something beautiful.

 

[monza]

Looks really good! I'm pretty keen to try a forest this spring, your's is a great inspiration for sure.

 

[amkhalid]

How did you gget pointed into the hornbeam direction? To be honest I never really noticed them when walking around. Now I'm keeping my eyes peeled LOL.

Mainly I chose American hornbeam because these had the most delicate twigging of all the species available at the nursery I got them from. Better than European hornbeam. Better bark characteristics than european as well. Although I also bought a number of beech (American and European) which I also think could make some nice group plantings.

Having never worked with this species, I hope it works out well. My main concerns are the ability of the roots to take the major pruning, and the longevity of the ramification (I cut off a lot of dead twigs).

 

[Nybonsai12]

I really like this group and despite you calling them sticks in pots, i think they look great size-wise. So many people focus on thick trunks with everything they forget how elegant something like this can look. Can't wait to see this one over the next few season. Please post a pic up when they have leaves.

 

[cmeg1]

Looks great!,I hope everything works out well for you.That is a very cool article,as I have read that too.It inspired me to make a purchase of Korean Hornbeam and Japanese Beech to do the same thing.

 

[amkhalid]

Update

 

[milehigh_7]

Very, very nice! Very delicate and easy on the eyes. Pot color is excellent. I am a fan of this one! Like the others have said it will be fun to watch it over the years.