It’s been a bit overdue for a post so here’s an update on a project I’ve had in the works for a few years. I’ve been busy but more good stuff to come in the future!
In 2014 I purchased a young clump Hinoki cypress which at the time had 4 trunks.
This is one of my first trees from my early bonsai career and I lacked a lot of horticultural knowledge to keep the tree healthy and vision to give it direction.
Here was the first, and maybe my first ever styling of a bonsai tree. Some basic branch selection was done and the trunks were spaced using a bamboo stick:
I soon removed the 4th trunk seen in the photo. At the time due to a lot of misinformed second hand knowledge I was convinced the nursery soil it was in was the bane of the bonsai world and I needed to change it asap. Having sat in a nursery can for perhaps all it’s life the root ball was a block of cement. I opted for a slip pot where I worked the outer roots and planted it in a large container with coarse substrate.
What ensued was a sick and weak tree for the next 2 years. Water, seeking the path of least resistance, freely flowed through the outer rim of new coarse soil while no percolation occurred in the more dense center. The lack of air and fresh water resulted in a weak root system and an equally weak tree. It wasn’t until the roots colonized the outer rim of soil that it began to perk up again.
During the 2015-2016 growing season I experiment with approach grafting. Hinokis are notorious for their lack of back budding on old wood and all my lower growth was very leggy and unusable.
I neglected to photograph the approach graft process but overall it was unsuccessful. Some graft unions did merge but I had unsightly bulging branches crossing the trunk. Overall it was poorly executed and did not improve the tree. I decided to remove all grafts and lower branches and building the tree in a new direction.
The tree received a rough preliminary styling positioning the trunks and primary branches. I mistakenly cut off one too many branches in the back resulting in one bare spot that I will remedy with grafting. Fortunately it is minor and out of sight.
The tree was repotted during the spring of next year and allowed to grow freely over the next several months. At this time the original block of roots were completely replaced with a new dense root system growing in a coarse inorganic mix (lava, DE, pumice). It grew very well and gained lots of vigor. A second wiring and pruning was done later.
Foliage pads will be defined over the next several years and the aforementioned bare spot will be fixed by grafting. Surprisingly over the past 3 and a half years the trunks have began putting on some girth. Since this tree is still very young in it’s development stage I tend to let it grow freely most of the season with only doing refinement work once a year. I’d like to let the trunks thicken more before I really begin stunting the branches through more aggressive work.
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Have an awesome day!
Julian
bontsaicom.wordpress.com 