Linden (tilia cordata) Fire in the hole and plan for 2013+

Only acquired in late summer 2012, for a cheap promo price. It was between prebonsai and raw material, a bit neglected, only put in pot since 1 or 2 years. Branches have no ramification etc. It had cercospora leafstain disease too: treatments with systemic fungicides (and total clearance of the old soil) will be needed.

So, regardless of the correct season/time to do work on it, i did some anyway. It was rather lowpriced, its a rather 'big' but still young tree, and i want to repot it in spring without having to do lot of other work then:
- i chopped the top and carved it a bit (lot of old rotten wood was present at the back in old wounds, so i could connect some deadwood areas)
- made the beginning of a shari, i am planning on a (semi) hollow tree
- i set it on fire hahaha because i dont want to use lime sulphur and still want a bit of 'treatment'/hardening of the (very) soft linden wood. Now I let nature do its work and let it rot for some years, before treat it with love again.
- in spring while repotting i want to do some more damage and split the trunk (not split it in two, but split it onlyl halfway deep with chisel and wedges), just enough to have widened it enough (about 2cm) and leave cracks and fissures in the hollow rather than actually split the trunk fully (with see through holes). O it will suffer, thats for sure...or die

Some pictures, as was, as is, and to be (continued)

Looks like a good start!

Oooh my God
Your tree looks a lot like mine (the original)
The staems on the leafs where from frozen water on my tree

Belgium beginner wrote:Oooh my God
Your three looks a lot like mine (the original)
The staems on the leafs where from frozen water on my three

:-) why not post it, show it, could be fun, especially since we're both belgians too haha.

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great, thanks for the upload.
So, any drastic pruning scheduled in the near future
otherwise, its my experience that branching/ramificition with Linden is difficult if not impossible to obtain closer to the trunk, after a while shorter and weak inner branches tend to die off or weakn very rapidly (within 1 to 3 years).
It shows on your pictures, and it shows on my pictures (the initial pictures). Thats why i opt for a drastic prune back, and i wont let the new branches grow for more than 1 season first or i'll have the same problem again and again.

So I must cutting back at 10 cm from the trunk ? now or after the winter ??
And next year all the new branche cutting away ?
What was the cheap price ? I payd 125 or 120 euro

With time and good technics, every thing is possible : TILLIA CORDATA, 25 years old, cutting , high : 25 inches.
i cut all the foliage in june every year to let sun light go to the center off the tree, small branches don't die with this technic

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Nice tree and tip
I must not forget that

Belgium beginner wrote:So I must cutting back at 10 cm from the trunk ? now or after the winter ??
And next year all the new branche cutting away ?
What was the cheap price ? I payd 125 or 120 euro

no, dont 'rush' into it, take your time first, and dont immediately compare your tree exactly to mine. But it sure seems the leaves on your tree are also situated on the tops...and that the branches dont have secondary branches. Ramification will only (mostly) occur on the outsides of the branches then, if you only prune the tops in the future. Would be very hard to get inner ramification.
I would indeed advice strong pruning back at some time, maybe not all has to be pruned back at once. Take your time. I just went for one big cutback because there were other issues too with my tree.

low price was 100. Remember, my tree allready had about 8cm girth of trunk, tha base with nebari 10cm+

abcd wrote:With time and good technics, every thing is possible : TILLIA CORDATA, 25 years old, cutting , high : 25 inches.
i cut all the foliage in june every year to let sun light go to the center off the tree, small branches don't die with this technic

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all depends on how it was built up from the beginning too, so with the techniques you used (and selecting branches), you have got more inner ramificiation... if Belgiumbeginner would only apply this now this HIS tree at its current state, he would not get the same kind of ramification, but yes perhaps it would help. I must admit, defoliation is not a method I use to often with my trees, because i dont want them to weaken too much. Ok you can feed the remedie this a bit, but still, an attack of lice or other desease at that same moment, would not be so good for the tree. In stead of defoliation I myself prefer to build it up again. But ok, that could be helpful tip