0soyoung
Imperial Masterpiece
This is what is now smiling back at me.
from this thing I found in a one gallon pot at my favorite local garden center nursery, Sep 2014.
I wrapped the stem with self-amalgamating silicone tape and closely coiled heavy wire over the region I intended to bend. It snapped like a candy cane and again when I attempted to complete a 180 bend. So I secured it with a kluge of a bamboo pole and wire. I also cut off the one gallon pot, loosened the roots and put it into a larger plastic pot backfilled with medium size landscape bark and a dash of potting soil. This is how it stayed for about 3 years.
ln June 2017 I removed the wire and cut off the silicone tape.
This is how the area of the two breaks appears today.
Sep 2017 I affected a half bare root (HBR)
This past spring I completed removal of the nursery soil and bark and potted it in the wood fired nanban. I waited until October (2018) to reduce the foliage to the present level.
This trunk has been remarkably resistant to thickening, which for this kind of image is a good thing. It also has some very nice bark that I look forward to seeing on more of the stem/trunk.
I will decandle it for the first time next year and am expecting it to make the image more evocative of pines in old wood block prints.
from this thing I found in a one gallon pot at my favorite local garden center nursery, Sep 2014.
I wrapped the stem with self-amalgamating silicone tape and closely coiled heavy wire over the region I intended to bend. It snapped like a candy cane and again when I attempted to complete a 180 bend. So I secured it with a kluge of a bamboo pole and wire. I also cut off the one gallon pot, loosened the roots and put it into a larger plastic pot backfilled with medium size landscape bark and a dash of potting soil. This is how it stayed for about 3 years.
ln June 2017 I removed the wire and cut off the silicone tape.
This is how the area of the two breaks appears today.
Sep 2017 I affected a half bare root (HBR)
This past spring I completed removal of the nursery soil and bark and potted it in the wood fired nanban. I waited until October (2018) to reduce the foliage to the present level.
This trunk has been remarkably resistant to thickening, which for this kind of image is a good thing. It also has some very nice bark that I look forward to seeing on more of the stem/trunk.
I will decandle it for the first time next year and am expecting it to make the image more evocative of pines in old wood block prints.