bonsaial1

While my expertise in bonsai may not be to propagate bonsai, I surely know what I like. We may difffer on that. Thats OK. But when it comes to growing out trees for sale as material, one thing stands clear. The future of the tree depends a lot on what the propagator has initially done to the tree.

In my small bonsai world, There are only two styles of tree. Chokkan , and everything else. All the other styles could somehow be adapted to grow from stock which has twists and turns in the trunk. The tree you posted was broomstick straight for more than 2/3 of the tree's height. While the tree had a great root system and a great lower trunk, the tree started to fall apart after that. The pucker wound detracted from the front, the bottom chop added huge shoulders to the tree, the trunk from that point on had no taper, and the next chop was not that much better, coming off at the side.

I felt the tree having all these bad qualities for the tree now, might not look that bad in a couple of years. We talked about thread grafts to try and help the healing along, we talked about a thread graft right through the pucker, we talked about letting the tree just grow to stretch out the taper. None of these things that were talked about were even talked about with the other members. You just slept on it and hacked the tree back down to 4" high. Now you have a much bigger chop, and still a straight leader, telling me that you want to go with that chokkan again. I think you just set yourself back three years. deja vous.

In a forum such as this, if you are asking for help one has to close the mouth and open the ears and mind. AK