FredL

Pootsie, thanks for the very interesting comments by Andy Ruttledge. How I love responses that actually address the question being asked!

And this is really a very good topic!

I've been trying to create good material from very average: the sort that is available everywhere at little or no expense, so this issue comes up constantly for me. I've watched the results of a whole lot of cuts I've made over the last three years to dozens of trees. I would say that the very best way to develop an understanding of trunk chops is to do a whole lot of it with a large number of trees - and see what happens!

I'd say that Andy offers very good advice and an excellent starting place, but I wouldn't get too doctrinaire about it. After while, a person gets a "feel" for what's liable to happen with a particular cut at a particular place, though often enough, the tree will respond quite differently to any particular technique than expected.

In general, I agree that most trees will get chopped several times before they become material ready for initial styling. I am finding that I like what I'm getting from several chops over the first several years. This is not to say that a single chop after a tree has reached a few inches in diameter will not work well. I am faced with this with seveal collected trees that I collected after I got the hang of collecting small trees. I consistently collected too much trunk at first, so I have some "Broom Handle" style trees that will have to be cut back (chopped) radically.

John Naka's "Bonsai Techniques I" provides some valuable rules of thumb regarding ratios of height to diameter and some other issues regarding trunk chops.

Fred