Thunbergii stick

0soyoung

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This is what is now smiling back at me.

full


from this thing I found in a one gallon pot at my favorite local garden center nursery, Sep 2014. Inked2014-09-20 13.00.19_LI.jpg

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. 2014-09-27 13.09.23.jpg

ln June 2017 I removed the wire and cut off the silicone tape. 2016-06-05 12.23.09.jpg
This is how the area of the two breaks appears today. 2018-10-10 12.50.25.jpg

Sep 2017 I affected a half bare root (HBR) 2017-09-27 11.58.18.jpg

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. 2018-10-10 12.48.38.jpg 2018-10-10 12.48.41.jpg 2018-10-10 12.48.47.jpg

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.
 

0soyoung

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Wow! So cool!
How did that that tape come off after 3 years? Was it easily removed?
I had to carefully slip a scissor blade under it and cut it - two-plus years in the sun and weather didn't degrade it at all. Once nicked, it will split/tear a bit without having to dig in the scissors the whole time.
 

Potawatomi13

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There be an interesting trunk. Break bends so much more interesting and often surprisingly heal;).
 

petegreg

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Quite a change. You have made a stick look interesting, I like a new trunk line and bark forming in only 4 years!!! Thanks for posting.
 

Johnathan

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Sweet! Anyway to get an overhead shot?

I snapped one and left it alone, eventually everything above the snapped section just died lol
 

0soyoung

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Sweet! Anyway to get an overhead shot?

I snapped one and left it alone, eventually everything above the snapped section just died lol
Sorry to hear that.

I am of the opinion that this is a benefit of the silicone tape - water barrier that keeps the cambium in the break from desiccating. Of course, a moisture barrier needs only remain in place for 10 to 15 days for a new epiderm to form, so you could have promptly wrapped the break in plastic wrap (e.g., Saran) and maybe had a different outcome. I've also done this and it seems to work. The key, IMHO, is keeping the break stable so that the thread of cambium across it isn't broken.

It seems to me that one ought to be able to put a break back together using grafting techniques (which also carefully covers the 'break' with grafting tape - a moisture barrier). I am such a pathetic grafter that I can predict certain failure were I to do it :confused:. You certainly couldn't do worse - one just never knows until they try (next time, maybe).
 

Johnathan

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I did have it wrapped with vet wrap, but I'm sure it doesn't have that water barrier benefit lol.

So when you anticipate a break, you use the silicone tape? Do you just get that from HD or Lowes?
 

0soyoung

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So when you anticipate a break, you use the silicone tape? Do you just get that from HD or Lowes?
Exactly.
I get mine at a local O'Reily's autoparts store, but AFAIK, the same stuff is at the big box stores, Amazon and other autoparts stores like NAPA.
 

Potawatomi13

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Well Phooey! Still seems an interesting tree to live with. Personal suspicion upper tree died from humiliation in that pot!
 

sorce

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That which does not kill it......

Sorce
 

Adair M

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That’s too bad it didn’t make it. Fortunately, you still have something you can salvage from the experiment.

So, we’ve learned something from this, no? Wrapping and coil wiring did not prevent the tree from snapping when being bent. So, if you were to do this again, how would you do it?

I propose that after wrapping with whatever product you want to use, instead of coiling with wire, instead lay long pieces of wire along the trunk. Especially along the outside of the intended curve. THEN coil wrap to hold the long wires in place. Then bend. The long parallel wires to the trunk will provide the holding strength, and since they are supporting the outside of the curve, prevent the snapping that you experienced. True, you won‘t get the sharp bend that a break will produce, but preventing breaks gives the tree a better chance of survival.

Better luck next time!
 

PiñonJ

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A big bend like that is best done with a wedge cut. It removes tissue from the inside of the bend that would otherwise act as a fulcrum. Removing that fulcrum reduces tension on the outside of the bend.
 

0soyoung

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I am convinced that this is not a routine thunbergii, but some cultivar akin to a cork bark - very brittle and it is expertly grafted.

... not meaning to sound defensive.

The now dead part was quite healthy for 5 years, the bark where it was wrapped was beginning to be flaky again (like the bottom part of the stem) and the wire ripples were disappearing. In the fall of 2019 I reduced the needle counts trying to affect my desired image (ala old Japanese woodblock prints. There was back budding on that part of the tree last year. Then the buds on that part became small/weak last fall, a new shoot showed some yellowing, yet it was all a healthy green otherwise, until a bit more than a month ago.

I am thinking that I reduced the foliage too much and started a downward spiral just like happens to weak branches that get decandled insead of being left alone. It did adjust and cracked one of the branches on the part that died in 2020. It could also be that I broke one of those two original breaks in the process.
 
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