New and Experimental Techniques

rockm

"have heard of cutting to thicken, also read about using a needle or pin to poke tiny holes in the area to be thickened,..."

This is a cheap short cut that mostly leads to really ugly locallized thickening. It produces only thickening in the area that's wounded. It also limits the tree's ability to produce REAL thickeing as the localized scar tissue doesn't support growth above it, as regular tissues do. Scar tissue has no sap pathways, forcing living foliage supporting tissues to grow around it.

All the short cuts, razor blade, pins, hammering, etc. are cheap short cuts that produce mostly ugly results. Hammering can kill the tree if it's done wrong. There are no real shortcuts that work. You will exhaust yourself and your trees looking for them.

Why not trying to actually grow bonsai rather than trying to find ways to avoid do so?

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zen

Not sure El, try it and let us know what happens. Muehed, how many times did you perform this technique through out the year?

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"Although profoundly "inconsequential," the Zen experience has consequences in the sense that it may be applied in any direction, to any conceivable human activity, and that wherever it is so applied it lends an unmistakable quality to the work."

~ Alan Watts (1915-1973)

waltseed

Is this from pesonal experience? How many times have you tried? Which species?
Or could it be you need more practice?
Just asking. I'm still experiementing with some technics, while not using them on my favorite plants. I'm not saying that my experience is otherwise than what you say, other than stimulating more buds breaking and trunk thickening on wisteria. I was very happy with the results. And that was just a minor variation on old-fashioned sacrfice branches, a method of growing more of them at a time.
I have been planning an experiment on over 100 seedlings this summer, with controles and replications.

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Waltseed

RonMartin(deceased)

I have been doing bonsai for over 30 years on many different varieties of trees. Hope that counts as having a bit of experience.
All those short cuts give unpredictable results. And I might add for the most part ugly unnatural results.
I first heard about the hammer thing in the 70's I have yet to see it work. Seen it tried But never seen it work. Scar tissue after all will always look like, well, scar tissue ;o)

Vance Wood

I have to take exception with you on this one Mark, I have and do use the pin hole method to thicken a trunk, but only those trunks that have a reverse taper. One of the trees in my gallery had this problem; it no longer has. I also find it marginally offensive when a technique like this is called a cheap short cut.

It is no more cheap than a tanuki graft or the use of wire to improve or change the shape of a tree. Trunk chopping, root folding, root pruning, bark striping, the use of lime sulfur, and of course the use of defoliation to increase ramification. Bud removal, needle plucking, decandeling, terminal pinching, and a host of other techniques are all short cuts of a sort in that they ascend to the goal of achieving this image we call bonsai in as short a time as possible. Pricking the trunk on a pine takes time before you actually realize the results, three to five years, but in the end it does work. Those that get carried away with the technique, looking for results tomorrow, could very well face disaster.

As with all things, and you are right on this point, if it is not done correctly the results can be ugly or at worst, deadly. Bonsai is after all an exercise in short cuts. It is an attempt to make a small tree look like it may be hundreds of years old.

I just realized that this particular tree is not in my gallery so I will post it seperately.

Attached Images

ScottLiterati06.jpg500pxl.jpg (62.4 KB, 106 views)

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Graydon

This may be a neutral response but..

At one point wasn't the concept of bonsai an experimental technique itself? I mean these trees don't grow like this all by themselves do they?

Sometime ago somewhere up for debate I can see a couple of people sitting around talking about trying to grow trees in pots. It may have went like this :

person 1 : hey, I have this crazy idea. I want to grow this tree in this pot but I want to make it look like a big tree.

person 2 : huh?

person 1 : I said I have...

person 2 : (interrupting) I heard you. I was expressing disbelief. Why would you even try to...

person 1 : (with enthusiasm) because I can, or at least I think I can.

person 2 : cool. want to go grab a beer?

person 1 : yeah.

So I say keep trying. Try it all and keep what works. I am sure this hobby is littered with more failures that there are dead trees. Old dead trees. Perhaps some old dead small trees in pots.

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zen

Like I say I have tried the tapping technique, wouldn't really call what I did "hammering", and like I say it seemed to thicken the trunk of the ligustrum that I did this to, more so than it would have grown without the treatment.
What some call "shortcuts" might actually be viable techniques. I do understnad what you guys are saying about the scar tissue looking ugly, and it makes enough sense to make me use these them only on practice material untill I either see for myself that they can NOT be used in at least a some-what predictable manner or learn otherwise.
I do appreciate you guys points of veiw but you must realize that we use all kinds of techniques all the time that make younger trees appear older,...or are all of your bonsai really 200 to 300 years old? This is our art of deception, or as most like to say illusion,...but what is an illusion if it does not succeed in deceiving?
EDIT: Well, Vance beat me to the punch on making my point,...boy you guys type fast. LOL

__________________
"Although profoundly "inconsequential," the Zen experience has consequences in the sense that it may be applied in any direction, to any conceivable human activity, and that wherever it is so applied it lends an unmistakable quality to the work."

~ Alan Watts (1915-1973)

zen

That is kinda funny to think of that way Graydon. Though i'm sure it evolved (or is evolving quit ea bit more slowly than this. Thanks for reminding me to look on the bright side.
Wanna grab a beer?,...LOL

__________________
"Although profoundly "inconsequential," the Zen experience has consequences in the sense that it may be applied in any direction, to any conceivable human activity, and that wherever it is so applied it lends an unmistakable quality to the work."

~ Alan Watts (1915-1973)

Repotter

I feel I must once again mention the process that I used about 15 or so years ago.
I did this on a Japanese boxwood that I had grown from a 99 cent plant purchased at a garden center.
After growing it for about 5 years and it had some side branches I wanted to thicken the trunk. Remembering what a farmer once told me about how he used to "beat" his Apple tree trunks with a stick to increase the sap flow to enhance the Apple production. At the time I only thought it was an urban myth.
He also told me that it thickens the trunks in that area. So I decided to give it a try.
I used an ice cream stick. (you know the flat stick that comes with ice cream from the guy on the truck)

Using both hands I held it between the thumb and forefinger of one hand while bending the end of it back with the other hand then releasing the tip to allow it to "snap" against the trunk. I would do this all around the diameter of the trunk for at least ten or 15 snaps.
I did this each day for two weeks in the early spring. Repeating it again two weeks later. I repeated this for 3 more times during the summer at about two weeks apart.
This "snapping" was done on the first one inch of the trunk starting at soil level.
By the time the end of summer came the trunk had definitely increased in diameter by about one third more than the other boxwood that was acquired at the same time and had not been treated this way.
This was enough to convince me that there was something to it. The trunk base had now a nice flare to it and was noticeably larger than the area above it.
The tree is now in winter storage and asleep for the winter. Otherwise I would post a picture.

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