Replanting My First Forest

rowan57

Hey OMC, any chance of an update pic since the forest will be in leaf now?

Cheers
Rowan

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In literary and art criticism there are two criteria, the political and the artistic....

Words and actions should help to unite, and not divide, the people of our various nationalities

I often talk to myself because i am the only one who truly understands me.

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Bart Thomas(deceased)

Hi, Carl.

Nice start.

when you rebuilt the forest, did you use another mesh "scaffolding"?

I recently bought a forest at an auction that had been done in a Colin Lewis workshop, and took it to Chase Rosade's to repot. About two weeks earlier, I had created my first "real" forest at a class with Chase.

Anyhow, he does NOT like the use of a grid, which he says must, sooner or later, be removed, as it will eventually strangle the roots. It was the very devil's work removing the steel grid from the Lewis forest.

Chase uses several other methods of holding the trees in place, as detailed in the Trident Forest with Chase Rosade thread.

How many trees do you have in your forest? In the view from above, during the potting process, it looks like 7; but in the front view I see 6.

If you do have 7 trees, the one that's "hiding" in the front view should be moved slightly so it can be seen.
From the side, too, all trees (trunks) should be visible.

I'm no expert , just a beginner, parroting his sensei.

(This forest business is a whole lot less simple than it looks!)

Bart Thomas(deceased)

FWIW, here's the forest from the Lewis workshop, after repotting.

We moved the two trees on the left towards the center about an inch, and, as I noted, removed the steel foundation grid.

The pot was (yet another) prize from the Green Island ficus contest, contributed by Reiner Goebel. I sold the original mica pot (a twin of Carl's) to the fellow working across the table from me.

Attached Images

lewis forest s.jpg (65.7 KB, 319 views)

rowan57

Thats a very nice forest but does it really need the 2 really tiny trees back leftish? i think just the 2 groups would look nice.

__________________
In literary and art criticism there are two criteria, the political and the artistic....

Words and actions should help to unite, and not divide, the people of our various nationalities

I often talk to myself because i am the only one who truly understands me.

Bart Thomas(deceased)

They are there to establish depth. Their smallness is meant to make them look farther away. It works better in person than with a photo.

Carl_Bergstrom

Hi Bart and Rowan,

Thanks for the kind words. I decided I still didn't like the forest, and moved things around yet again. I did use a mesh (see the attached photo, albeit of the post for my other forest) placed atop my drainage layer, because I haven't found the untangling to be so terrible if one is willing to cut the mesh to shreds.

I think that the stock trees in my forest are not good enough (too straight, not enough taper, too ruined through repeated prune-back and indecision on my part) to be candidates for a really good forest. For the time being, this one will be a learning exercise for me, so that I can get better at composition.

With my best regards,
Carl

Attached Images

2004_03_drainage_layer_and_grid.jpg (70.2 KB, 132 views)

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In love with trees

Carl_Bergstrom

Here was my planned composition for the maple forest. Comments welcome.

I don't have a full leaf-cover yet, because the first flush was weak given the extensive root pruning that I had to do. I'll post a picture later this summer.

Best regards,
Carl

Attached Images

2004_03_layout_diagram.png (19.5 KB, 120 views)

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In love with trees

Camay123

In this composition ( drawings ), the biggest is not at front and the smallest are not at the back. You wont have depth feeling when looking at this arrangement.

Point given, the size is going from side to middle, it will give you a sort of nice ^ shaped foliage.

Do you intend to recreate the small rock trail with a nice rock ? Because that what I see on the right of the plate in the open space.

Bart Thomas(deceased)

The forest you describe (and the one I pictured) are "far-view" forests. In "near-view" forests, the positions of the large and small trees are reversed.

Of course, there are many other ways to style a forest. ABout 6 pages in Naka I tell far more than I could!