A few comparisons

I've been sitting on this spruce since I collected it, getting more and more unsure that it was actually worth having. It had a lot of elements that I liked, but I wasn't sure how to bring them together. This is the start I made:

That front branch will need to be adjusted more, and the lower trunk crossing branch too. I had them the way I wanted them before pulling the tip down with a wire, and they are no longer in alignment. I thought of just chopping the front branch off, but I can always do that later

I want to keep it so I can try developing a line that resembles a favorite stance of my old teacher Steve Smith (R):

This is not a great picture for showing the side profile, but it's the best I could find. I want the tree to evoke a forward piercing into an oncoming force. The back branches that form a bow do this well, but they are not obvious from the picture. The could be made more obvious by trimming, and I will do some trimming eventually, but for now I'll let it keep all its parts.

EDIT: I was not as patient as I tried to seem, I cut of the branch. The more I looked I realized that the forward intent, but backwards sweep seemed like a bird or a dragon to me.

I wish I had a picture of this hemlock as I originally had it. It was impossible to see into it because of the branches, it was a lot taller, and it had a whole extra dead trunk. Alas, I will start the progression from here.

After much string and wire I got it into this rough shape. In the future the stubs of the trunks will be trimmed down and hidden with foliage, but for now I am using them as anchor points for my strings.

I am sure experienced bonsai people would find my string techniques quite awful, but they seem to be doing the job for me, and string is cheaper than wire.


He is my dad's Fukien Tea, it has become much healthier under my care, but he doesn't want me to cut off the long branch, or any branches for that matter.

  

Thankfully the foliage is getting dense enough to hid the ugliness of the branches. In time maybe I can make the long branch acceptable.

Here's a Chinese elm. The second picture may look unruly, because of new growth, but I consider it an improvement. I've been trying to order the branches into a more natural shape, and expand the crown the crown laterally. I also decreased the crown of the tree quite a bit before this picture was taken.

Here it is now, after changing the soil and with many adjustments made to flatten the large branches.

The Best Yet

                                                         

Over the winter I wanted very, very badly to go scope out some muskeg for yamadori. For those unfamiliar with muskeg, it is an acid peat bog environment. Heavy acidity, low oxygen content, water immersion below the moss line, and heavy snow packs all tend to dwarf the trees managing to eke out life in the muskeg. You cannot walk twenty feet without seeing a tree that, if it were somehow magicked into a pot, would easily be a bonsai masterpiece. I went on a cursory photo expedition to show some of the coolest trees to people online, but the backdrop of other trees, and moss, combined with my poor camera skills to obscure the beauty of those I wanted to highlight.

 Now the snow has mostly receded, I've been exploring the bonsai potential of the muskeg to a greater extent than was possible in winter. Unfortunately I've discovered that almost all the trees are totally unsuitable for bonsai. This is because, while they appear short, 99.9% of the trees are actually a few feet taller than they appear. The muskeg top-layer is comprised of sphagnum moss, and mud-- totally saturated with water: basically a lake with a sponge on top. Unable to find support in this medium, the trees are sending long trunks down into the murk, with nary a root within reach or sight. One feels like Tantalus on Earth in the presence of such trees, so close, yet so far beyond one's grasp.

I have refused to accept that in all the vast reaches muskeg there are absolutely no extractable trees. Thus I have studying the landscape to determine which areas are more likely to harbor suitable trees than others. Some rare patches are more earthy than watery, and there are raised hillocks where generations of trees and shrubs have created raised ground. Hemlocks have a penchant for growing on nurse logs, and it's due to this habit that I've collected most those I currently possess, so I held out hope on that front. But, the problem is that mountain hemlock, not western hemlock is prevalent in the muskeg, and they do not prefer logs nearly as much-- being content to grow in the mud and water.

Nevertheless I persevered, and after much wandering I came home with this beauty:

I just ecstatic over this tree. The pictures do not do it justice, but even with my poor and hasty camera work the quality of this tree is apparent.

I preserved as many roots as I could. The hemlock had been growing not quite on a log, but along it, and so while there was a descending tap root, there were also lateral roots extending into the shallow soil on and around the log. I did not try to extract what fine roots I salvaged from their soil, as there weren't as many as I would like, and I did not want to damage them at all. Unfortunately it was difficult to navigate the soil, due to other woody plant growing in close proximity. The tree is now planted in the soil it came in, along with primarily orchid bark, and a small portion of good topsoil.

I hope and feel this mix will be suitable for the hemlock. I wanted a very well draining, yet very moist environment to support the earth that still surrounds the roots. I am not at all worried about over-watering it, because its habitat was immersed in water, and I live in a rainforest. But just the fact that I like it so much makes me nervous about its recovery. I am keeping it in a shady area, and will mist it throughout the day during this initial period. It does have a lot of needles, so I don't want it to transpire to death.

Here at the end is small shore pine I collected the same day. It is very nice in it's own right, and I'm not worried about it at all. I've observed from another shore pine I collected that they are incredibly hardy.

My collection so far

I've been itching to make a post with pictures of all my kidnapping victims, so here it is: I'll include a few notes on each tree, and for some of them I'll have a before/after comparison of some kind.

As always, remember you can see the full size image by clicking on the picture.

This is a sitka spruce that I really really love. I think that with a few years and a nice pot it will be, by my standards, amazing. Here's what it looked like earlier this spring:

This next tree is a big western hemlock I picked up recently. It was very easy to collect, as it had been knocked over, probably several years ago, and was growing sideways in a ditch, with most of it's root ball out in the air. Because it was growing horizontal, it doesn't have any branches on the back, but I hope new growth will appear with the trunk chop and the sun. Even if none appear, i will be satisfied with snaking a side branch down and around the back, it will hardly be noticeable once the front branches are established.

Here's a smaller western hemlock, I want to bring the left branch in and down for a small cascade.

 When collected it looked like this:

 I collected it by sawing off a portion of the nurse log it was growing on, and because of the size of the wood I planted it in this large box. But after thinking about it more carefully, I realized that the wood was probably very easy to remove, so I lifted it out, crumbled away most of the wood, and plopped it into the much more fitting pot that now contains it. The pot it's in now is not terribly suitable, I must admit, but it will suffice for a few months.

The tree above is my little mountain ash. I've modified it slightly since receiving my new concave cutters, but overall I'm very pleased with it. It seems well adapted to life indoors, but it winters outdoors.

This next tree is a mountain hemlock, it's not much to look at right now:

When I collected this tree it was a solid green mass. Both of the trunks you see were taller, many smaller branches were coming out everywhere, and there was a third dead trunk standing in the center. I regret that I didn't take a picture at that stage, but I didn't get around to it.

As you can see the trunk is nice and thick, but the tree looks bad from many angles. I think something close to what is pictured, or possibly the reverse of this angle, is what I'll have to go with.

This is another mountain hemlock. I'm trying to train it into a savannah-esque shape. The poking out branch is a very vertical branch that I made more vertical by wiring it to a dead trunk in the center. I'm trying to train it into another smaller savannah canopy above the large one. If I fail, though, I will just chop it off. I don't expect failure however, it will just take time.

This next tree is a small shore pine. I was nervous about it's survival, since I couldn't save hardly any roots for it, but since collected a month ago it has put on new growth, and shows no signs of dying yet. The furthest back trunk is actually very old for its size, and has some really cool bark and deadwood near the base. In the future I need to figure out how to make it more prominent, which may involve cutting the second trunk away. I'll leave it for now, as it has more needles and the tree needs to recover.

Next is a pretty big sitka spruce:

 It has some great bends, a cool deadwood knot near the top, and some really nice bendy branches. The roots underneath are also very interesting, though you can't see them now. For some reason this tree reminds me of witches, and I'm trying to think of the most appropriate way to enhance this image with styling.

This is a tiny mountain hemlock that I picked up to fit an awesome rock I found on a boat trip. I should have taken pictures of the assembly process, but I did not.  There are long roots with soil and moss banded down the side of the rock, which is almost as tall as the pot is deep. The needles have a ill hue, which is pretty common for these trees when growing in super acidic bogs. Since I potted it, however, fresh green needles are growing at the tip of each bud. This will only ever be a tiny tree, but it has very cool roots under that moss, and the rock alone is worth looking at.

Here at the end is a small crabapple sucker which seems to be doing well. I want to make small root over rock with it when it grows out more. It probably won't ever be impressive, but it's practice, and it was free.

Last is the very first tree I ever collected. Judged as impossible to bonsai by some, I think it will become excellent in years to come. Imagine a future where this tree is cut before the bend, with a new trunk growing up, and the old stub turned to jin. These roots will look even greater once the stump rots away, and will easily form a root over rock (in my opinion). Root over rock is practically the natural spruce habitat.

 Before that I will cut it about halfway up the trunk in the next few years. There are already new buds growing heartily below the stick, so all I need to do is wait for them to become strong enough to take over.

More new trees!

So, I think I've discovered the fastest way to miniaturize alder leaves (which from what I've read is fairly hard to do). They key is to transplant it with almost no roots, bringing it to the verge of death, and not allowing it the correct resources it requires!

That's basically what I did to this little guy, it's a miracle he survived. Hastiness and excitement led me to bring him indoors, about a month ago, when Juneau was still in the throes of winter. The leaves started opening up quickly, but then froze for about 3 weeks. I was sure he was dead, but I know alders love water, so I poured vast amounts of water on it, and it woke up about a week ago. Now it looks like this:

When my new concave cutters arrive I'll fix some of those big bumps that stand out so prominently, and I'll snip that tall thin branch by the end of summer.

These next pictures are of a small spruce that I've super excied to have found. It has an interesting trunk, loads of branches, good taper, and so, so many fine roots. I dug it out of some very rocky soil. If you expand the picture you can see how snow has pressed one of the main branches down almost parallel with the trunk. I think with a little clean up this tree will look awesome.

The Big (sort of) Spruce

 

This is the tree I've had my eyes on. It's big, in my opinion, but I think it has an awesome trunk for its size, and it's in a location that will be relatively easy to extract it from. Here it is from the other side:



I think this side, or something near it, would make the best front for the tree, because even though the other trunk is lost, the main trunk has a weird reverse taper when viewed from the opposite perspective.

Check out how it tapers off swiftly:



Here's a shot of the trunk near the ground from the bad side, you can see what I mean about the taper.

I will be going out again soon to think about this tree, probably several times, before digging it up, any suggestions and advice will be appreciated.

Scourge of the forest

Surely the council of tree spirits palms its collective forehead and groans, that such a fool as I decided to explore the art of Bonsai. I've been out in the woods today, again, and brought back two new specimens: one blueberry and one Western Hemlock.

The blueberry I found on a trail which had recently seen the passage of some city workers. The small bushes and trees, in and around it were devastated some kind of machine. I was pleased, though, for I found this prize:

The trunk is not all that big, indeed it's small. But it's a woody trunk nonetheless, with an extensive root system, almost all of which I preserved, and it's a trunk that has new low shoots, and a cool, rooty bump (pay no attention to the little roots around the base, those are not from this plant). I really, really want to try styling a blueberry bush into a tree, and this promises to be a good first foray.

The second catch of the day is something I'm really excited to have found:

Click the picture to getting a bigger image

The trunk has an awesome bend in it, with some cool nebari (a little hard to see from this shot, and with the moss). What's more, there are many low branches, all healthy, and the trunk is quite supple in the upper regions. I think there's a lot that can be done with this tree in the future, but I'm not in a huge rush. It would take many years for a hemlock like this to stiffen its branches.

In a few months I'll decide on a tentative form and post pictures.

Sitka Spruce

Hello Reddit people, those of you who came to visit that is, I couldn't get imgur to behave today so I'm using my old blog to host this image. Above you can see the Sitka Spruce I laboriously extracted from the forest. It was growing from the rotting trunk of a fallen Alder, which must have had some living parts growing distantly, because the trunk was not rotting whatsoever at the core. It was hard as rock. My axe pinged, as if on metal, trying to cut that center, so I had to go get a saw. I was committed to extracting the tree, because I really liked the bendy trunk, and the exposed roots, and because I think it will survive easily (because most of it's roots are in that rotting trunk).


For now I will let it rest in the pot, until next year. The plastic wrapping is to prevent the shaking loose of superficial rotting layers of the trunk, where the feeder roots live. My chopping was quite percussive. I will keep it tied on until the roots have a chance to grab onto it and solidify the structure.


I don't know what direction I will take with this tree in the future, but I have some ideas. It is showing some growth very low on the trunk, and so I can imagine making the upper trunk into jin, and having the branches on the lower section. But, I can also imagine planting it at a slant in the future, so that the originally vertical trunk is at a slant, and then bending the apex vertical again. This is my idea in the even that, when the log ultimately disintegrates, a more horizontal orientation can be proved for the roots to take hold of.


Whatever the case, I plan on substituting a nice rock for the stump, when, as it must, it is consumed by the spruce.