Rescue style

Alasdair

I had an experience with a chinese elm.
At the time i was workin in a garden centre for work experience, and this gorgeous elm was staring at me from the bench, pleading me to take it home. Then it took a turn for the worst and lost all its leaves from not being watered. The leaves shrivelled and turned brown before dropping off and all of the young growth died. This fooled the garden centre int thinking it was dead.

Then, at the end of the week as i walked out of the door i saw the elm in the skip. Now that wernt on, so i put her in my bag. Now shes a beaty, with bags of potential. I havent got any pics at the moment, but she kind of looks like this...

-The nebari are very interesting. I raised a few centimetres out of the pot and this revealed a few heavy roots wound around the lower trunk. there is also 1 root about 5mm wide which leads away from the tree on the surface right under the canopy. I also got plenty of root cuttings of of her, im still waiting for these to show signs of life.
-The trunk is about 6 inches tall and an inch wide, with really old looking craked bark. At the top of the trunk is an interesting noble of dead wood pointing straight up
-There are two main branches coming off of the noble on the trunk which are quite heavy. One of them has an unnatural curve to it which i dont really like, but im going to attempt to correct it next year.
-As for the smaller braches, i had to prune them rather substancially as they were terrible. I have jinned some of them to try and re-create the look of an ancient oak in the british countryside.

Im going for more of a chinese look with this tree, an animalistic gnarled tree emoting pain and great age through the contortions of the branches and dead wood. I was just wondering what people think about it? This tree was priced at £30 so i think its a bargain.

cheers.

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Treebeard

Hello Alasdair,

It is a bit difficult to offer any words without a picture. From what you've described the tree sounds fairly typical of bonsai sold in garden centres. Some of them have potential, I've picked up several over the years that had promise, which are progressing well. I think that if you just treat them as very raw material, ie a basic trunk to start from then you can't go far wrong.

A couple of weeks ago I was in a garden centre, there was a chap going round the bonsai stand putting all the crispy ones in a bin bag. No doubt destined for the skip. Can't help thinking what a waste.

Regards,

Chris.

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