Voodoo Bonsai

juliet-of-oz

Before I start, i would just like to point out that this is a disaster. I am very disappointed with myself on the following but i am posting it anyway to show you my big stuff up!!

OMC - I know what you are going to say about this, but after 9 hours of work im quite tempramental so please take that into consideration...

However, on the brighter side, i did learn some lessons today, but as i NEVER plan to do this again, i guess it doesnt really matter.

Anyone planning the following should advise neighbours that a lot of cursing may be coming over the fence today...

So if you havent already jumped ahead to the pics ( yeah right) what i was trying to do was a fused trunk trident maple.

What i got was a blob.

If you plan to try this do it dugzbonsai way. www.dugzbonsai.com
Dont do it this way, unless you like frustration.

We start our journey with some wax and some pins....

Attached Images

wax and pins.jpg (26.6 KB, 1257 views)

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juliet-of-oz

oh yeah and some 2 year old trident maples...lots of em

First mistake, in future use younger maples that bend with ease, NOT these ones

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the maples.jpg (43.8 KB, 1192 views)

juliet-of-oz

ok, so Doug uses a timber stump and carves it to the shape he wants...

I tried that and ended up with a toothpick!!! There is an art to carving and i dont have it. So with some thought and help from Matt, the idea of foam (the space invader foam that fills holes) was considered. To make a shape in tin foil and fill it with foam. This foam sets rock hard though, so i thought of candle wax. (Hey I thought it was a good idea at the time)

So i made some home made play dough, shaped a stump, covered it in tin foil and duct tape, pulled out the play dough and filled it with wax...

before you ask, i ran out of white wax, hence the green base.

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the start.jpg (31.8 KB, 1351 views)

juliet-of-oz

so far so good... Im still pretty happy with things. I added some foam to the base for the roots to spread out over and pinned it to the wax stump.

And now we get to the errr to the, FUN part. Today was a lovely sunny day, just perfect for anything outdoorsy, and i chose to do this...

The first of the maples is pinned onto the wax stump with sewing pins. They actually arent that easy to push in either, but they tend not to hold too well.

Thats the second mistake, and yes i can hear you laughing

Oh and no looking at the mess in the background

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first trees on.jpg (33.9 KB, 1240 views)

juliet-of-oz

still fairly happy at this stage, but im starting to realise this is going to take a while...

So to hurry things along and make it easier (yeah right) I made mistake number three, pinning all the trees to the base of the stump and securing them instead of doing each one seperately

stop laughing

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all the trees on the base.jpg (35.3 KB, 1226 views)

juliet-of-oz

Now just take a good look at the picture above and imagine trying to bend those fairly un-flexible maples to the shape of the stump without poking out an eye, and then trying to fix it in place with a sewing pin that is very hard to push in and doesnt want to hold very well, and usually wobbles back out again when you arent looking.

there are well over 50 trees on that stump and i pinned them all on at least 3 times... as i got one side pinned and started to move around the others will have bounced back out..very frustrating indeed. I said 'Oh Bother' a few times and the dog chose to stay inside today.

So anyway, day has turned to night and i am finished

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the back not potted.jpg (36.9 KB, 1303 views)

juliet-of-oz

the tape you see is grafting tape but it doesnt pull the trees in well enough to the shape of the stump and the pins at this stage certainly werent helping. My hands however look like a pin cushion.

The black tape you see is a rubber stretchy stuff called masters tape and is made in oklahoma. It is used for holding roots onto rocks and THANK GOD FOR IT. It is super stretchy, very strong and sticks to itself. I hightly reccomend it and in this case it was very useful for holding my trees to the stump and pulling them together.

Here is a closer shot of the roots i left

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the roots.jpg (42.8 KB, 1111 views)

juliet-of-oz

I plan to leave the graft tape on the base unless it causes a problem with moisture till end of fall (about 6-8 months) and hope that the trees have learned their new shape by then.

I think i left too many gaps inbetween the trees for them to fuse anytime soon (mistake number four)

With the trees attached the stump has lost all of its curves, i should have made them more dramatic to start with (mistake number five)

I am putting it into a grow box and not the ground (probably mistake number six) so i can better monitor how the tree copes with summer stress and get it into the shade if need be...boy i hope that wax doesnt melt.

Mistake number sever was getting out of bed this morning. At the moment I am tired and sore and feeling a bit sorry for myself at having made such a balls up of ths project..but im sure it has been entertaining.

Ahh if you cant laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at, and as i said, i did learn some things. So this can be a practise tree for branching and ramification... not a total loss

thanks for reading

Juliet
Tree Voodoo Massacre Specialist

Attached Images

the end thank god.jpg (35.5 KB, 1230 views)

juliet-of-oz

oh the reason you cant see the pins very well is that i changed from the pearl top pins to tiny headed dressmaking pins very early on. On the very first picture you can see little white dots, those are the pin heads..

trust me there are a LOT of pins in that stump, well over 200