Chinese Elm--Almost There

Thomas_J.

Most of you have probably seen this ch. elm in my gallery. The description at the time put the tree at three years of styling under my care. Well its been five years now and it's just about where I want it to be. As I also mentioned in the description, it took me three years to decide where I wanted to go with it. I'm glad I didn't make any hasty decisions in those three years. I thought I would post a few five year shots for anyone who might be interested.

Attached Images

ishhi elm 3-08(03)#1.jpg (56.7 KB, 283 views)

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Thomas J.

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Thomas_J.

And a daylight shot.

Attached Images

ishi elm 3-11(68)#1.jpg (52.7 KB, 280 views)

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Thomas J.

Adam_MA

WOW!
Great tree. Nice job on this one

Adam

Mr. Ian

Thomas,

Looks great. The foliage pads are nicely developed and balances well with the overall movement of the trunk. Impressive job.

Peace,
Ian

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Treebeard

Yet another testament to your pinching diligence, Thomas. The foliage is wonderful.

Regards,

TB

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ChrisM

thomas, i am at a loss for words, each time i think i have seen your best work, you come at us with another of your brilliant elms. if i can turn any of my elms into half the tree that you have shown here, then i would be extremely satisfied. great work!!!

mkonig

I am growing a few chinese elms myself and i have one question:
How do you get your foliage pads that tight?

Mike

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Thomas_J.

Mike,
That is a question I get very often. Once you have all your leaders grown into branches and they're in the places they need to be, and their thickness is the same as the other established branches, then it's just a matter of clip clip clip. Or if you prefer to call it pinching. Whatever you call it, with ch. elms it's something you'll do the whole growing season, sometimes everyday.
You'll pinch or clip it to shape and the resulting new leaves will come in a little smaller. The only side bar to this is, you'll end up with a lot of twigginess that will have to be cleaned up every couple of years. Also on my trees, once the leaves harden up some, I'll start working on the inside of the tree to remove growth that doesn't need to be in there, and I'll also remove a lot of the leaves in areas where I need to let more light in. To sum it up I'll probably remove about a third of the leaves on this particular tree by mid summer so as not to get die back inside from not having enough light in there, and also for looks sake, to expose some of the inner branches so the tree looks more like a tree rather than a bush. Hope this helps.

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Thomas J.

DavidN

Magnificent as always.

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Bonsai Northwest Inc, Melbourne, Australia

Bonsai Flora Nursery in Yarraville, Melbourne