Advise Cork Bark Chinese Elm

Jay

I would appreciate some opinions. Last spring I purchased an imported, bare rooted, Chinese Elm. It is a twin trunk beauty. It came to me with little branch structure. I placed it into a pot that is not right for this tree, but it was the right size. At the present the buds have not started to swell. I am as some are aware in zone 5b/6a. This tree is one of my wintering in the garage group. I have two questions for you.
1- Should I let the branch structure grow freely for another year (or two) to help with the root development?
2- If I wanted to repot this guy, and found a large enough improvement in the roots, could I begin to shape and remove some of the incorrect branches? Is it OK to repot after one year a bare root tree?
Thanks for the thoughts; I am posting a pix of the tree from October 2001. At this time it is difficult to remove it from its winter resting place for a picture without the leaves. Jay

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TreeBay

This tree has a lot of potential, but probably not as a twin trunk.

With a twin trunk bonsai, the trunks would be much closer to the soil surface, and one trunk would typically be at least 50% larger than the other.

Trimming the large branch on the left would add significant movement to the tree and eliminate the frog's legs appearance.

Regards,

Matt

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Jay

Matt, I see your point. Could I airlayer the trunk that could be removed (if I go in this direction). If so when should I do the deed. If I do remove the trunk should this prevent me from repotting, or is this a completely unrelated item.

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A Bonsai student living with his trees at N 44.37 W 77.49...
Think before you act... then think again... no good comes from rushing

TreeBay

Yes, I was thinking an air layer might be nice, but I couldn't see the other trunk very clearly in this photo to see if it might be worth the effort (it often is)

Air layering chinese elm could be started most any time, they are really easy.

One technique I saw for healing big wounds like this was to saw just 2/3 of the way through the branch and remove a thick wedge from the outside.

The rest is left on, and the sap flow around and to the remaining bit of wood will help heal the wound very rapidly.

If you choose to air layer instead, you could get that going now and not repot the tree for another year as you were thinking. When you ring girdle the trunk, be sure you cut all the way through the thick cambium (it's spongy and white) down to the wood, which will look like, er wood. It sounds drastic, but that's how it's done. Take at least a good band, maybe 1/2" wide off, trim up the edge with a knife to make it clean. Wrap with two separate ties of thick aluminum wire to keep it growing back together, treat with rooting hormone, wrap with moist sphagnum moss generously and a cover with a plastic bag tied well at the bottom and loosely at the top. Root will emerge from the upper edge of the wound.

Elm roots well enough that you could try to make a hanging pot suspended in the tree filled with soil instead of using the poly bag. Then just use a little sphagnum around the wound and the rest would be soil held in maybe a 1 gallon container that has been cut in half with a big hole in the bottom to clamshell around the branch.

Regards,

Matt

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Jay

Matt, thanks again. I am going to try and get some pixs today or tomorrow to post, hopefully it will aid in others seeing the tree as it is. Question, you suggest "Wrap with two separate ties of thick aluminum wire to keep it from growing back together", Is aluminum prefered here to copper, or will copper do as well? I may post the follow up pixs to the Gallery section to try and get a little more feed back!

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A Bonsai student living with his trees at N 44.37 W 77.49...
Think before you act... then think again... no good comes from rushing

TreeBay

Hi Jay,

Copper should work ok. Where the main purpose of the wire is just to take up space (as in this air layer), aluminum is probably a better choice because it is soft & pliable.

I sometimes wonder about the effect of copper on developing roots. I suppose if it isn't there long enough to leach into the soil it should be okay. I use copper to tie-in trees without problems. I still wonder about having it flush against an area where I am trying to get roots to issue.

One prospector's trick for finding deposits of copper ore was to look for trees that were unnaturallly stunted, or so I am told.

Regards,

Matt

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carmi

Hi Matt,
Pleas tell me the name of the software you use for the manipulation of the picture.
Thanks,
Shalom,
Moshe.

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TreeBay

Just Paint Shop Pro: the "clone brush" to erase the branches and a paintbrush to draw in new ones. You can find more about this in the Virtual Bonsai folder on how to do bonsai with a link to download a 30 day evaluation of the program.

Most general purpose programs have this capability (Photoshop elements, Paintshop pro and others.)

Regards,

Matt

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tinto

You can start work on it now. removing the bits you dont want will help put growth in where its needed.
Rather than cutting the left branch off think about leaving several inches of dead wood to be carved and hollowed out later .
These are some photos of a 2 foot tree reduced to 8 inches.
These trees respond to pruning by throwing lots of backbudding and new growth.

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