Hi Graham, i would go with Photo 2. Lean the trunk more to the left and turn the top jin slightly forward. This would accentuate the branching out and away in more windswept fashion. It may also catch some of the live bark line for the viewer. Take the longer view and reduce back the branches over time to grow out the remaining innermost foliage. These hemlocks can put on amazing growth after adapting. Fertilise heavy you may be surprised by the amount of back budding. I know My Hemlocks have back budded way more than the pundits say they do. Also as you know it is unwise to reduce too many roots or foliage on a Hemlock at one time. By using the smallest inner branches to grow out the final foliage it will be easier to achieve the scale you are looking for. In the end you may remove the lowest branch to achieve more of a sparse windswept look. Some of the windswept trees i noted in newfoundland this summer only had branches and foliage on the top 1/4 to 1/3 of the tree.
If you use Photo 2 for the front do a little carving to reduce the straightline cut at the base over time.
When repotting, i reccomend the section method , with the key focus to remove the inner mass of original soil as soon as possible. That way the fine network of feeder roots closer to the surface are not disturbed all at once. If my expression of this concept is unclear just give me a call. Basically it is one of the options that Michael Hagedorn teaches specifically for Hemlocks. The growth of foliage never skips a beat with this method.
Hi Frank, many thanks for you comments.
I brought it into my shed and have the tree sitting in front of me as I was going to look at it again.
With many of my hemlocks I’ve specifically kept the smaller branches closer to the trunk line and used those to develop foliage masses and removed or jin’d the larger ones that are out of scale.
The lowest branch is the longest and at the back and yes I have thought about removing it, down the line. When it went into the grow box, I did remove some of the original soil and it’s in almost pure pumice (some Seasoil and original forest floor) and with a little exploration the other day there are lots of feeder roots.
The Shari isn’t really my doing, I noticed that the bark looked dead and sure enough it easily flaked off, (it must have been damaged by the logging or road building), the bottom line of it has always bugged me so I may do something with it.
Re; your comment on the top Jin/Shari, it does currently move forward (photo #2) in a continuous curve from the base.
Cheers Graham