Shore pine styling

Here's a small shore pine. I grabbed it after very little inspection for three reasons. It had an ok trunk with cool bark, it was growing in an area that actually encouraged roots, and it had a whole lot of foliage.

 

It took me a fair bit of thinking to decide what I wanted to do with this tree. Looking closely, I saw that the biggest horizontal branch was just as big as the ascending trunk, and that it really just looked like the letter T if you took a step back. This was unsatisfactory. It was also very long, with many secondary branches, and many buds, so I took this step to draw it away from the T shape, and condense the form of the tree.

  

It still didn't look right to me. The top left branch was coming out too far. There was also a wonderfully ramified little cluster being hidden inside the crown, and I didn't like the dead branch on top. I saw a nice back branch that I wanted to pull up to be the new apex, while chopping off most of the current one, but that seemed drastic, even though it would look good. In the end I cut off the dead top branch, and used the stump to pull the top left branch up vertically. I pulled the end of that branch down to improve the silhouette, and I spun the tree 180 degrees to make use of the "back" branches.

This is the result, which I am pretty pleased with. It is much improved, but for some reason not yet satisfactory. I will fiddle with it no more until next year: a time I pray it lives to see.

Also, here is the small new planting area I created. This used to be a mound of dirt, run through with salmon berries, but I dug it all apart and made a spot for growing too-small trees.  If you look closely you can see a few tiny ones that I had, for lack of another place, in pots.

More muskeg shots

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New workspace

Until now I've been working and re-potting my trees on a table made of stacked up rope spools and blocks of wood. Trees not currently being worked on were quickly filling up deck space, or being rat-holed around the yard. But, no longer! Yesterday my dad and I built a new bench! Here it is: already home to a few trees.

In frame you can see my ridiculously large and ugly alder. This tree was blown over onto the beach, and I couldn't resist dragging it home. New leaves are opening on the few branches I was able to save, and I think it will pull through, given the tenacity of the alder. For the future I'm envisioning a broom/savannah top on the main trunk, which will be cut where the stump emerges. Hopefully I can find someone to carve that rightmost branch into a person emerging from the tree.

I collected this spruce today. The roots are amazingly cool, just somewhat hidden for now. When I saw this tree int he ground I was planning on eventually cutting just above where there's a mini-spruce growing off the trunk (about half way up). I left more branches above it though, to help it recover from the move and chop. But, it was hideous. So I rashly began styling the upper branches to improve the silhouette for the appreciable duration before I removed the top. However, after doing so I kind of like what I made. Almost makes me want to keep it. But the trunk is perhaps not thick enough to justify that kind of height. We will see.

I wasn't going to wire this tree at all, but I got the wire out for a few other things, and I got carried away. I know it is not recommended to style trees just after they have been collected, but the styling was not drastic, and lets be real, sitka spruce is invincible. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

The other things were putting some initial movement into these two small trees (alder and hemlock).

Which I know, I know, should not be in pots, but I don't have anywhere to put them just now.

Aaaaand, I used some soft rubber, wire, and string, to make a sling for the problem area on my wonderful mountain hemlock:

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.