Chopped Trunk Designs

bonsaial1

Young Mr. Crow, brought up a good point in my brilliant reply to the bonsai ability thread. While his reply said that he too could have a great personal collection if he opted to go out and spend 2000.00 dollars, that was not my intent. I know OMC knows what I mean, but I couldn't help think that there must be someway to get the help out there. I will propose this:

Lets start a thread with trees that have been chopped down from larger stock. Give a breif history of the tree, why the chop was done and any info on where you see the trees design for the future. This can be acheived thru virtual's or hand drawn pictures. Or if you are good with words just tell us where the tree is going. I need pictures to tell my story, I don't do words good.

Please don't post a tree here and ask for a ton of help. I want this to be trees designed by people on this forum. These should be trees that have been chosen because you have a specific plan. Show me what your made of. I also think that the trees should hold up to a critique. If you see me posting something with the wrong future, I want to know about it.

While I know that everyone will not be able to post a project, feel free to state some strong opinions here. I can take it, hopefully everyone else will too.

I think this will be fun for everyone, educational, and help people get to know one another. I have gotton to know more about Lessa in the past four days, than in the last 4 months. That girl can get down and dirty too. What fun!! If this works, we could do layers or grafts or anything anyone was so inclined to start.

Let the posts begin!

Bonsaial

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ripsgreentree

I am thinking, your idea so you should go first.
Nah! I will go first.
This trident was a piece of material that I grew in a five gallon nursery pot. I let it bolt to about 7ft. and then choped the trunk. There was a 4 ft. second trunk that I also choped at the same time. Now the second trunk is the first limb and the heavy trunk creates the crown. My goal for this tree was to create a heavy trunked shohin with a pleasing crown using the trunk chop technique. I have had no formal training, I just wanted something that looked like the pictures in the books. I will post two sides and let you all tell me which should be the front and which the back.
first side

Attached Images

trident shohin front.jpg (20.0 KB, 1029 views)

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ripsgreentree

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ripsgreentree

Second view, I hope that you like this tree. Here are the stats.
Trident maple, has correct roots, 3in. at the moss line, 9in tall (from the moss line), has a one inch chop on the main trunk (healed) This tree has been in the pot for 8 years.

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trident shohin back.jpg (19.7 KB, 900 views)

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ripsgreentree

It requires an open hand to give and to recieve.

Carl_Bergstrom

Rip,

First, a disclaimer. I don't do tridents. So my comments here are not species specific - in what I've written below I'm basically assuming that this is a hardy and fast-growing Acer palmatum. That, and I'm not going to hold back in the least in my comments. I hope you'll do the same for me later.

That said:

The second view is my clear favorite. Mostly because the chop scar is less visible but also because the movement seems a bit better. The two-trunk design is quite pleasing from the second view. I find it a bit disharmonous (is that a word? I think not) from the first view.

The big question that arises with this tree is what to do about that chop scar. Right now even though the scar seems to be healed over, it's huge and prominant and there's certainly nothing like a gentle taper from below the scar to above it. You know more about the growing aspects than I do, but I don't think that's going to change within the next decade or so if the tree stays in that pot. Maybe with judicious use of sacrifice leaders you could prove me wrong. I don't know.

Which leaves a couple of alternatives, as I see it. You could put the tree back in the ground and grow it out to say 15 -18 inches and shoot for gradual taper, or you could basically bring the branches and canopy in to conceal the trunk job.

The former is a long run project and I'm not sure it's worth the effort on that piece of material. The latter will never lead to a perfect masterpiece shohin, but it could lead to a really fine tree that I'd be proud to have in my garden and proud to display at a show. It would only take a year to bring the foliage down so that in leaf you don't see the trunk chop. In a few years, you might be able to most conceal the chop even in winter by carefully placement a front and side branch.

So that's my take on the tree. I promise I'll post something soon so that you can have your change to even the score.

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In love with trees

bonsaial1

The back shot is my clear front of the tree. It does not even look like the same tree from the back. I agree the second trunk "works" on the second shot, but somehow misses the mark on the first. The shape of the canopy is great, and the trunks seem more tapered in the second view. I like the more slanted exit of the trunk from the soil in the second view also.

Bonsaial

ripsgreentree

As a grower this leaves me with a serious delima. Material in the ground grows so quickly that it almost all will have large healed or unhealed chops. Although I have never befor been that concerned with chops on tridents, having seen many trees taken out of the field with chops on the trunks larger than 3 in. Never the less I am going to have to come up with some technique that reduces the noticability (now there is a non word) of a healed chop.
Thanks guys!

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ripsgreentree

It requires an open hand to give and to recieve.

David Chauvin

I agree that the second view shows a much better line. I really like the way the second trunk has developed. This should turn into a real beauty.

Trunk chops are usually associated with deciduous trees, but I wanted to get in on the fun and decided to post a before and after juniper. Some of you have seen this tree, but here goes anyway.

This tree was purchase 10/01 from Lowe's home center. It was approx 5' tall. Only the bottom three branches were kept and only one used in the design. I put it in a pot this past Feb (2nd pic) and have just let it grow since then. This Sept I'll thin it out with the intent of a late winter rewiring.

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\'grace\'.jpg (46.3 KB, 964 views)

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Carl_Bergstrom

David,

Wonderful! I'm really amazed at just how good that "before" picture turned out "after." If I'd just seen the former, I would have thought that there wasn't much hope.

I'm afraid I don't have anything in the way of helpful advice to offer here - the tree is already better than I thought it could have been given the material, and only things I can suggest are the obvious ones that you already are working on - developing foliage density, etc.

I am going to post a juniper that I don't know what to do with one of these days, and maybe you'll have an equally good idea how I should treat that one.

Cheers,
Old Mister

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Jay

I will attach four pictures of a Buckthorn I collected this spring. It was growing wild in a field with several (hundred) others. This tree was in the way of a future pet run. In clearing the area I felt that this tree had an interesting Nebari. I chopped it at a height approx 6 inches, that I felt would be necessary due to the lack of taper to the full size tree. The new leader is being allowed to grow free as to develop its size. I have been able to develop the 1,2,3 branch but feel a second chop will be necessary in a couple of years.
All four pixs are from today. 1- full tree. 2-close-up 3- lower trunk and roots (my size 14s for scale). 4- two leaves with a nickel for scale. The large leaf is from this tree, the smaller leaf is from its cousin that was not chopped and has the true leaf size.

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buckthorn1.jpg (63.9 KB, 791 views)

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