名媛直播

some progression on my carpinus

bought just over a year ago.. as a cheep pre-bonsai looking like a wild broom


in spring i repotted it and pruned away most of the crossing branches to open things up a bit


this winter i cut back most of the branches with just some buds left to start working on the general styling
also cut back the large pruning wounds on the trunk and carved back the big wound at the top of the straight part in order to create some more movement between that transition.
sorry for the bad pictures.. i'mm get some better ones soon in daylight and with a normal camera..
new front view

right side

left side


size view


nebari


can grow freely this year.. next winter new branch selection and refinement of the wounds and carving

Very... daring.
What's the little plastic basket on the pot in the 2nd picture?

名媛直播Learner wrote: Very... daring.

I was thinking the same. Nice find, looked quite good - but seems like starting all over with it.
Well... we've seen some of Cronic's results so I'm sure he knows what he's doing.

What's the little plastic basket on the pot in the 2nd picture?

Something every bonsai grower has - probably: fertilizer baskets.

thanks..

indeed it are fertiliser baskets..

about the tree.. well.. daring.. maybe.. it "looked" quite good.. from a distance.. but a closer look shows all the branches needed serious work.. and ramification was't that good either..

a few years back when i still had time and money (kids tend to take all of both) when i did some workshops with Danny Use, one of the main things he told me was that in training, a tree doesn't have to look good.. but you have to try and think about how it will look x years later because of the steps you took...

so when i have a tree like this, sometimes i feel like it's better to completely restart and rebuild the tree from scratch.. it has a small nebari where things can be build from, and apart from the straight trunk in the bottom half, it has a good flow..
so plan was/is to rebuild again from that base..

only other option i saw was to airliner into 2 shohin.. but i was put off because of a big horizontal cutting wound where the curve of the tree starts...
in the original state of the tree, you could see a 2cm wide horizontal cutting wound covered with callus (which made it look like an asshole, seriously)
this wound was carved back diagonally to try and make the transition fluid.. (if all this makes sense..)

Yup. Have done the same this winter to my oak. Removes 90% of the branches to increase taper & ram,nification. Good start.

Consider whether you want your branches to be that horizontal though. And. Ehm.. I would have kept a little bit of the next bend all the way in the top; Can you regrow part of thst movement? I feel it created a bit more tension in the trunkline.

i can easily regrow it all..

last year i noticed backbudding all over the place after a hard pruning..

this is just a first branch selection and an initial styling..
i think that next winter i'll have more to work on..

maybe a little better lighting