Just started my first tree, and I need tonnes of help!

aaronledrew

Hi, I'm living in eastern Canada and I'm planning on growing a small tree that I have transplanted, and have had growing in a pot for a few weeks. To be honest, I'm not sure of the tree type, or anthing else.. right now I have it wired, but I'm not sure what kind of shape I'm going for. I want to thicken the truck alot, and create back buds lower on the truck to give it more shape. Any help and suggestions would be greatly appreciate. Thanks.

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october

Hello and welcome aaronledrew........I hope you are a patient man..Although I cannot say for sure that this is a procumbens juniper, I can say it is a very young tree......You really would have to wait abouut 3-5 more years, at least, to do any real work on this tree. The only thing you could do now is wire the trunk into the shape you want......However, even this, you would probably want to wait.

One thing you could do is plant it in a much larger pot or in the ground where it will be protected from harsh winds, extreme cold and heat.

In my opinion, I would look around for some older material. With this particular tree, like I said, you are lookign at 3-5 more years minimum before you could even begin seriously working on your pruning skills.

p.s....I would look at many, many pics of bonsai. Then decide what you want to do with this tree in the future. Also, learning the 5 major styles of bonsai is an absolute neccessity in the beginning.

Rob

davidryan820

Hi Aaron--

What Rob said ) Since you're new at this I would encourage you to have a look around this site and read as many books as you can about bonsai. I think it'll make you realize just how involved and how much patience this art takes. It is awfully rewarding though when you begin the steps Rob mentioned and as time goes by, you enter a new period of growth (both you and your tree). If having a tree that has a much thicker trunk and character is what you want, this tree needs to grow a lot.

I started a lot like you-- I found a tree I liked and went to work, not realizing that I think in terms of weeks and months and occasionally years, trees grow in terms of many years and decades and so on... So while you let this tree of yours grow, start hunting for something bigger that was started many years ago.

www.evergreengardenworks.com is a commercial site that is run by one of the members here (Brent) but he also has listed on his site a few articles that I think will give you a good understanding of what it'll take to get the tree of your dreams. Specifically, check out the article on developing trunks. I'm following the articles advice and I have to say, my trees are coming along nicely.

I currently have a crabapple and a regular apple growing wild in my backyard and they're developing nice, thick trunks. The regular apple even got its trunk chopped down to a much smaller height in an attempt to gain the aged tree look. I also have some other trees but they're early in the growing process (again, growing wild in the backyard).

Good luck and please look around this site-- I think you'll quickly gain some knowledge that'll help.

aaronledrew

thanks for the suggestions guys! much appreciated.. there are a number of the same species of trees around my yard, as well there is a blue spruce which is about 10 years old... i'llpost a picture as soon as i get one, perhaps there is something I can do with that..

Edit: Actually the blue spruce is much larger than I remembered, as it is bordering on about 4 feet, and I'm not interested in uprooting it since it took so long to take root.

So, what size of a tree should I keep an eye out for?

Also, I looked at a few pics of procumbens junipers, and I'm not an expert obviously, but I dont think that it what it is.. I'm thinking it might be a spruce, maybe a fir? I have no idea really,but it looked nothin like the pictures I've seen.

Dav4

If this is a tree you've collected from your area, I agree...most likely a spruce or fir. By the way, It would help to know exactly where you live/what climactic zone you live in (eastern Canada seems to comprise a fairly large area) so we can give you better answers to some of your questions.

Dave