This Article on Bonsai Basho - English Elm

[Bonsai Basho]

This is an article on the English Elms with some nice Yamadori for you guys.

We used to have 25 million elms in the Uk and now we have no more than 10 mature trees. The suckers from the roots however make for good bonsai.

http://www.bonsaibasho.com/micromarket/?url=/library/library/a319

 

[Bill S]

You have some pretty gnarly trunks there. No issues with collecting them, with so many wiped out?

 

[Bonsai Basho]

Elms

Hi Bill, There is no problem collecting at all. The mature trees are just about all gone but the suckers survive like these as shrubs. People just dug out the stumps when the elms died. If they had left them then they regenerate shrub size trees like these which are fine. If you can fins clumps of old elms which were left alone then they just keep growing more of these great bonsai size trees back.

 

[DaveV]

Hi Basho. Do you know if the suckers are still attached to the old stump of the tree or do they have their own root system. In other words, can you dig them up separately when they are growing around the old stump or do you have to dig the old stump out too ?

 

[rockm]

Interesting that "English" elm was basically an invasive species...

 

[Bonsai Basho]

English Elm

Hi, yes the English Elm is probably more Turkish but hey its was here for a while thanks to the Romans. As for the suckers you can lisft them in dormancy with very little root. Put them in good soil sin the right conditions and they will throw roots. English Elms propagate this way so they do really well. In the Uk we have a few Elm specialists and they willquite often layer off a big stump several inches in diameter without a problem. I have lifted some with parts of the old stump for interest. The wood takes a lifetime to rot so you can get some really interesting stuff out of an old stump.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

The same story with American Elms in the US - you can find small ones up to about 12" trunk diameter, but the BIG ones are very very rare.

We had a large one in our yard in the northern suburbs of Chicago. The thing was HUGE - probably 5' diameter trunk.

 

[rockm]

"The same story with American Elms in the US - you can find small ones up to about 12" trunk diameter, but the BIG ones are very very rare."

It depends on where you look. D.C. (and the surrounding area--there is a big old one near my house in a secluded part of the woods) is FULL of huge old American elms. The National Mall is lined with them--all the big trees along the reflecting pool are American Elm.
This one is on the small side:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2006/060613.Jeffersoni.jpg

There are some A.E. that are resistant to Dutch Elm Disease. The trees in D.C. seem to be full of resistant genes, although more than a few are sick:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/science/05obtree.html?pagewanted=all

 

[Klytus]

My Childhood was full of dead and dying Elms,the bigger barkless stumps even had names.

Those galleries you see haunted my dreams,we were the generation of lost elms,we climbed them,hid among them,found brightly coloured snails between them but never ever saw a living mature tree.

Something had been lost and yet was never talked about,these dead trees were the natural order.

 

[Bill S]

Something we hope isn't duplicated by the Asian Longhorn beetles being brought in, some towns in our state have already had to cut down many thousands of hardwoods, our hemlocks have adelgigs(sp?), and we often see those that want to know if it is ok to try and smuggle a tree on the plane.

Feel your pain Klytus, especially from another thread somewhere re. there is just a few of them left, it must be odd to not have all those trees.

 

[Klytus]

They were replaced with Leylandii,insult to injury and all that.

Within the last week the remaining elm scrub made some leaves,you would think after the explosion in the beetle population there would have been a lull as all their food became extinct.

The beetle is still clinging to life or the fungus now needs no vector as the elm saplings become winged with disease and die.