Trident wire marks

Adair M

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@Adair M for my own personal knowledge, is there no way to save a deciduous telephone pole?

I am looking at the attached photo (taken from: https://valavanisbonsaiblog.com/2018/09/13/2018-6thus-national-bonsai-exhibition-review/), for example. To my inexperienced eyes the trunk of this tree appears to have very little taper, if any at all. However, i don't know if it is the 'mushroom' shape of the silhouette that is compensating for the trunk, the flare at the base, or something else(?), but this tree is very pleasing to me as far as trees in its style go.

I'm asking because I often see (at the other extreme) tridents with trunks shaped like triangles (for example: http://walter-pall-bonsai.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-pot-for-big-trident-maple.html), which are the reason why I gave my young trident away for free - this dichotomy was creating a mental block through which I simply was not able to see an interesting future for my trident. I probably just haven't seen enough tridents in my life.

Would love to hear your thoughts :)
The picture you posted is Rodney Clemens’ winged elm. I’ve had the oppprtunity to see this tree many, many times over the years.

Critiquing this tree will be a challenge! Rodney and I go WAY back... here’s what I see:

Pros: old age, good bark on the trunk, great ramification. Shallow root system, well matched to the pot, pleasing Silohette.

Cons: lack of taper on trunk, poor taper in the branches, lower branches same size (caliper) as upper branches. The apex area shows thicker, but shorter branches up on the right side of the apex. The nebari is one sided, with a “missing area” on the left. The surface roots on the right appear heavy, too heavy when compared with the “lightness” of the branches in the canopy.

Things I’m confused about: the tree is potted on the right side of the container. Which is also the side where the roots are heavier. But there’s less soil over there! How does that happen? The first branch is on the lower right. But there’s a heavier branch above it on the left. Which is the key branch? The key branch should normally be the heaviest, and the lowest. And be over more of the soil. Then, there’s the apex. It appears to be moving to the right. The rest of the tree is a formal upright, so the apex should be centered. And my moving to the right, it again is moving towards the short side of the pot. All these contradictions make the tree look awkward to me.

Now, Rodney has been working on this tree for a while. And, this illustrates why it is really, really hard to make good deciduous trees. The temptation is to start making ramification before there’s a sound structure. And that’s exactly what has happened here. You can see old scars on the trunk where old branches were removed, and all the new branches started as new buds off the trunk. And when they popped, they grew out a bit, and then started getting pinched to create ramification. Years later, this is what can be achieved.

What should have been done is the branches should have been wired into position, and allowed to grow out more, then cut back more. Grow and cut back. Rather than pinch. Grow and cut back creates more taper. You can put on more wood if you let it grow out more. By letting the lower branches grow out a bit more, they would also have helped the taper of the main trunk, too.

But this is hard to do! It takes longer! It’s no fun building structure! What’s fun is making lots of twigs, and defoliating to make lots and lots of little leaves! Ramification! That’s the fun part!

And, the roots could have been fixed while the structure was worked. The nebari is hard work, too.

Now, before everyone hates on me, I will say that the tree is very beautiful! I like it a lot! But, it could be better. I’m sure that if Rodney knew then what he does now, it would be different. That’s the thing about bonsai: as we learn, we go back and say, “Gee, if I had only known...”
 

erb.75

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That’s a safe spot because it has growth on both sides. I’ve done too many trunk chops on tridents that died back to the ground on one side because no growth was present to stop the dieback. I agree I’d like to go lower, but maybe it’s just going to be a large tree. I’d rather suggest that than something that will result in someone damaging their tree.
ya, I tried to trunk chop a trident just like this one lower a year or two ago and figured it would sprout new buds all over (it was about 3 feet tall). To my disappointment, no new leaves ever came out and it just bit the dust. As Matt Reel has told me "bonsai is not a race".

I wouldn't chop past the buds if I wasn't sure that the tree had been fed heavily the year before...and probably still wouldn't chop past them. Better to do the high chop and then chop a 2nd time in the future if you get low buds. That's the safer route
 
D

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@Adair M Thank you so much for your thorough response. That's a fantastic post, and i appreciate you taking whatever risk it is by offering a completely honest review of a friend's tree! Thank you! I sincerely just learned a lot!

As @MACH5 knows (i've been chasing down his threads and asking about trunk development... he must be fed up of me by now!), i'm really into trunk development. So to get back to my main question, if one wanted a perfectly straight trunk (like the one in the original post of this thread, or like Rodney's elm) but with a sufficient taper (not a trunk shaped like a triangle) how does one achieve this? The chop-and-grow method, at least as i understand it, inevitably leads to a trunk with bends in it. So i guess i have two questions:

1 - at this point, (if one wanted to just for the sake of proving a point, let's say) is it possible to introduce taper with the original trunk in the thread, the deciduous telephone pole?

2 - if you wanted a perfectly vertical trunk like Rodney's and had the opportunity to start from seedling (for example), how would you get a straight trunk with taper? I'm going through my 'inspiration photos' i've been saving from the web, and they've got me wondering whether it's even possible.
 

Adair M

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@Adair M Thank you so much for your thorough response. That's a fantastic post, and i appreciate you taking whatever risk it is by offering a completely honest review of a friend's tree! Thank you! I sincerely just learned a lot!

As @MACH5 knows (i've been chasing down his threads and asking about trunk development... he must be fed up of me by now!), i'm really into trunk development. So to get back to my main question, if one wanted a perfectly straight trunk (like the one in the original post of this thread, or like Rodney's elm) but with a sufficient taper (not a trunk shaped like a triangle) how does one achieve this? The chop-and-grow method, at least as i understand it, inevitably leads to a trunk with bends in it. So i guess i have two questions:

1 - at this point, (if one wanted to just for the sake of proving a point, let's say) is it possible to introduce taper with the original trunk in the thread, the deciduous telephone pole?

2 - if you wanted a perfectly vertical trunk like Rodney's and had the opportunity to start from seedling (for example), how would you get a straight trunk with taper? I'm going through my 'inspiration photos' i've been saving from the web, and they've got me wondering whether it's even possible.
It depends.

Lol!!!

If you’re starting with a seedling, let it grow, and cut back. Wire twigs into position when they’re young and soft. They don’t take long to lignified, a month or 6 weeks is all. Then remove the wire. Before it scars up, let grow, cut back. Let new shoots grow. Wire. Let grow. Remove wire, let grow. Cut back.

It takes a long time.

There’s good reading on this and many other deciduous topics in @markyscott’s most excellent thread “Ebihara Maples”.

Now Rodney’s tree was collected. When starting with something like that, the process is the same as I just went thru, but you have to let the lower branches run moreto gain girth. And you have to suppress the top growth. As the lower branches run, they will put on trunk below them. But, it’s hard! You may have to let a branch go and be a sacrifice. Just to build taper on the trunk. It won’t really be effective until the sacrifice is taller than any other part of the tree. When that happens, the tree will direct all the sugars and growth hormones up the sacrifice. And all tha builds girth from the roots to the top of the sacrifice. After the sacrifice has done its job, then remove the sacrifice. Which leaves a big scar! The way to go it is to let another branch higher up go. Like before, all the sugars and hormones go up and down past the scar, and it heals over faster. But then, eventually, you’ll have to cut that sacrifice off, too!

See where I’m going with this? It’s much, much harder to “fix” a telephone deciduous than it is to grow one from scratch. (Unlike conifers.)

Deciduous are much, much harder to do well than conifers. And take much much longer. Which is why there are so few really good ones here in the US. We just haven’t been doing them long enough, yet.

Bill Valavanis has some good ones. But he’s been working them, from cuttings, for over 50 years.
 

Coppersdad

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@Adair M for my own personal knowledge, is there no way to save a deciduous telephone pole?

I am looking at the attached photo (taken from: https://valavanisbonsaiblog.com/2018/09/13/2018-6thus-national-bonsai-exhibition-review/), for example. To my inexperienced eyes the trunk of this tree appears to have very little taper, if any at all. However, i don't know if it is the 'mushroom' shape of the silhouette that is compensating for the trunk, the flare at the base, or something else(?), but this tree is very pleasing to me as far as trees in its style go.

I'm asking because I often see (at the other extreme) tridents with trunks shaped like triangles (for example: http://walter-pall-bonsai.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-pot-for-big-trident-maple.html), which are the reason why I gave my young trident away for free - this dichotomy was creating a mental block through which I simply was not able to see an interesting future for my trident. I probably just haven't seen enough tridents in my life.

Would love to hear your thoughts :)
I thought it was just me. I, too, struggle with a 6 inch wide trunk base on a tree that's 5 inches tall. Well, maybe that's a little exaggeration. I do congratulate all the artists that can afford the material and/or have had the time to grow a great base and huge nebari on their trees. My personal opinion has to do with proportion. And, yes, the trunk in your first example is pleasing to me.
Now, if an artist is attempting to create a tree, severely damaged and crushed during growth. Then it continues to show the will, the tenacity to struggle to live and reach the sky... Well, that is a creation I can respect.
 

Adair M

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I thought it was just me. I, too, struggle with a 6 inch wide trunk base on a tree that's 5 inches tall. Well, maybe that's a little exaggeration. I do congratulate all the artists that can afford the material and/or have had the time to grow a great base and huge nebari on their trees. My personal opinion has to do with proportion. And, yes, the trunk in your first example is pleasing to me.
Now, if an artist is attempting to create a tree, severely damaged and crushed during growth. Then it continues to show the will, the tenacity to struggle to live and reach the sky... Well, that is a creation I can respect.
Are you saying that you are struggling with the image of a sumo type tree? (Massive trunk, promenant taper, relatively short).

I can understand that. They are not “natural” for the most part. But, bonsai is an art. Our objective is to create beauty, using trees as our medium.

Let me ask you... when Arnold Swarteneggar was Mr Olympia, did he look “natural”? I don’t think so! Only bodybuilders look like that. And today’s bodybuilders make Arnold look wimpy!

So it is with some bonsai styles. Attributes get overexagurated. That’s just how “art” is.

With bonsai, to make it pleasing, there’s lots of ways to create the “wow”. Having it in s small pot is one way. Creating “fast taper” is another. Especially if you can do it with appears to be a scarless trunk. Having cool bark, or tiny leaves, or zillions of twigs... there’s lots of ways to impress a viewer. Are they all “natural” in that you could go for a walk and find a full sized version of all of our bonsai? Probably not. On the other hand, we try to make them look like you could take a walk and full sized version of our bonsai. That’s the art!
 

Coppersdad

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Are you saying that you are struggling with the image of a sumo type tree? (Massive trunk, promenant taper, relatively short).

I can understand that. They are not “natural” for the most part. But, bonsai is an art. Our objective is to create beauty, using trees as our medium.

Let me ask you... when Arnold Swarteneggar was Mr Olympia, did he look “natural”? I don’t think so! Only bodybuilders look like that. And today’s bodybuilders make Arnold look wimpy!

So it is with some bonsai styles. Attributes get overexagurated. That’s just how “art” is.

With bonsai, to make it pleasing, there’s lots of ways to create the “wow”. Having it in s small pot is one way. Creating “fast taper” is another. Especially if you can do it with appears to be a scarless trunk. Having cool bark, or tiny leaves, or zillions of twigs... there’s lots of ways to impress a viewer. Are they all “natural” in that you could go for a walk and find a full sized version of all of our bonsai? Probably not. On the other hand, we try to make them look like you could take a walk and full sized version of our bonsai. That’s the art!
Absolutely!
 

sorce

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@Gary McCarthy @Silentrunning

All.

We can't be mad at this situation.

Ok.

We Can know that ALL of these tridents marked various, usually $200-$500, prices in these production pots are ALL NO BETTER THAN A CUTTING!

"To have it" trees.
To have a species.

For me, the development timeline for these is so long, you can just as easy train a seedling or a layer into better material.
Free Shit.

Along with 3-5 Redwoods in a pot, these tridents are a disgrace to Real Bonsai.

No offense @Cofga ...

But you MUST now make BVF proud!

Make this something better!

Do the work!

S
 

Silentrunning

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@Gary McCarthy @Silentrunning

All.

We can't be mad at this situation.

Ok.

We Can know that ALL of these tridents marked various, usually $200-$500, prices in these production pots are ALL NO BETTER THAN A CUTTING!

"To have it" trees.
To have a species.

For me, the development timeline for these is so long, you can just as easy train a seedling or a layer into better material.
Free Shit.

Along with 3-5 Redwoods in a pot, these tridents are a disgrace to Real Bonsai.

No offense @Cofga ...

But you MUST now make BVF proud!

Make this something better!

Do the work!

S


Understood! Thanks.
 
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