Ugly JBP project

Gbhphoto77

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Thays my point. There are so many variables that it will be difficult to know what works and what doesn't. Im not saying that to mock. I have done the very thing you did. However i ran into the same issue. The tree lived but it was very weak for many years. At the end i had no idea what was a good technique or bad as they were all mashed together. Now i continue doing testing on the tree one insult per season. I heave learned much more of what works vs what doesn't.
 

penumbra

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Thays my point. There are so many variables that it will be difficult to know what works and what doesn't. Im not saying that to mock. I have done the very thing you did. However i ran into the same issue. The tree lived but it was very weak for many years. At the end i had no idea what was a good technique or bad as they were all mashed together. Now i continue doing testing on the tree one insult per season. I heave learned much more of what works vs what doesn't.
I've done this too. I think it might be a right of passage.
 

Beanwagon

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Thays my point. There are so many variables that it will be difficult to know what works and what doesn't. Im not saying that to mock. I have done the very thing you did. However i ran into the same issue. The tree lived but it was very weak for many years. At the end i had no idea what was a good technique or bad as they were all mashed together. Now i continue doing testing on the tree one insult per season. I heave learned much more of what works vs what doesn't.

I get your point completely.

For this initiative stage of training I wanted to go hard because the material was incredibly boring to me.

I wasn't necessarily trying to learn good vs bad technique. My main focus was seeing how far I can push this in one season. As mentioned in a previous post I have a few big pines that I have been growing for years and I want to know what they can take before I properly work on them. So I don't kill my good material.

I have taken this same approach since the beginning of my bonsai journey. It makes it fun for me. For e.g have 3 trees of the same species. Apply proper training and caution to two. The remaining tree is used for experiments extreme design ideas.

So far I have killed very few tree's
 

Beanwagon

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I have finally decided on a design for this tree.

If it survives long enough. The aim is to make it look something like this. "If It survives" being the key here.


I have changed the direction of the branching and further split the trunk at the base to create a hollow/taper. I will now grow out the sacrifice trunk for a few years while maintaining the lower half....assuming it lives.
20220425_113220.jpg20220425_110728.jpg
 

plant_dr

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I hope it stays alive and you can make something cool out of it.
Sam Doecke "Aussie Bonsai Bloke" on YouTube threw an olive into a concrete mixer with a bunch of bricks, how's that for an extreme technique? I probably wouldn't recommend that for anything other than an olive though.
 

Beanwagon

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I hope it stays alive and you can make something cool out of it.
Sam Doecke "Aussie Bonsai Bloke" on YouTube threw an olive into a concrete mixer with a bunch of bricks, how's that for an extreme technique? I probably wouldn't recommend that for anything other than an olive though.

Cheers!

I do have a katana. Maybe I throw this pine in a cement mixer with that.
 

Beanwagon

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Spring update: Still alive. Still ugly as sin

Current plan remains in place grow as thick as possible. And widen the spilt trunk for taper in the future.

I have 2 designed options


The red lines are where I'll cut in the future for one of my design options
 
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Srt8madness

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Well if you want to do your design in blue ink, that new leader needs to be thicken to Jin it in the future
 

Beanwagon

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Well if you want to do your design in blue ink, that new leader needs to be thicken to Jin it in the future
Definitely.

I'm having a lot of fun with this tree, regardless of if I Jin the leader or not. I will need to grow that out.

Another rough sketch without the Jin

20221023_233229.jpg
 

Beanwagon

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In regards to the spit in the trunk. I haven't really seen any examples of how that will heal/look long term.

I was thinking I would carve and burn it to try and mimic a tree that survived a fire.
 
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