Trunk Chop V Let it Grow

[one_bonsai]

I'm still a beginner and I have some very young Chinese Elms and I want to develop the trunks.

What I'm confused about is why the trunk chop and selecting a new leader is necessary to develop the trunk. Why can't I just wire the young elms with the desired trunk movement and just let it grow?

 

[TN_Jim]

got a photograph?

 

[Zach Smith]

I'm still a beginner and I have some very young Chinese Elms and I want to develop the trunks.

What I'm confused about is why the trunk chop and selecting a new leader is necessary to develop the trunk. Why can't I just wire the young elms with the desired trunk movement and just let it grow?

What is most often meant by developing trunks is growing them to size with movement and taper. This is most commonly done by letting the tree grow out for a time, then chopping the trunk way back and growing a new leader, letting the tree grow out again, then repeating the process. You can wire your small trees and let them grow, but they won't have taper (Chinese elms are notorious about this) and this will likely frustrate you down the road.

You should do some research on this site regarding how to develop small trees into decent larger bonsai material, then decide how you want to approach it.

 

[one_bonsai]

Pictures

 

[MrWunderful]

Chopping is done to increase the ratio between the height and width to add the illusion of age.

If you just let them grow, they wont have much taper- just really long straight trunks. Plus trunk chops add a different type of movement As well.

 

[one_bonsai]

I see. Thanks for the replies. So I've styled the trunks in the picture above. Is this the right thing to do if I intend to trunk chop in the future?

 

[Shibui]

Wiring is always good practice, even if you don't use all the curves you have created in the final product.
Low curves in the trunk that is left after any future chop can be very useful in making the final trunk interesting so early wiring can be really good.
I suspect that those very understated curves in your trees will be completely gone when the trunks thicken a bit. Trees tend to grow more on the insides of bends so gentle curves just disappear inside the thickening trunk.

I find that bends created by pruning nearly always look more natural than wired curves. It is quite hard to get random bends when wiring and random usually looks more natural than lazy S bends.
Just how much bend and where it is on the tree will depend on how large the tree ends up and what your idea of bonsai should look like. There is room somewhere for almost all shapes and sizes in bonsai so your trees will be fine but I expect they will look far different in a few years.

 

[one_bonsai]

Wiring is always good practice, even if you don't use all the curves you have created in the final product.
Low curves in the trunk that is left after any future chop can be very useful in making the final trunk interesting so early wiring can be really good.
I suspect that those very understated curves in your trees will be completely gone when the trunks thicken a bit. Trees tend to grow more on the insides of bends so gentle curves just disappear inside the thickening trunk.

I find that bends created by pruning nearly always look more natural than wired curves. It is quite hard to get random bends when wiring and random usually looks more natural than lazy S bends.
Just how much bend and where it is on the tree will depend on how large the tree ends up and what your idea of bonsai should look like. There is room somewhere for almost all shapes and sizes in bonsai so your trees will be fine but I expect they will look far different in a few years.

Thank, that's great information