Douglas Fir Yamadori

Greetings IBC, this is my first post here. Just finished a preliminary styling of a collected Douglas Fir from the Rockies collected in Spring of 2007. I will probably remove more branches and also make it more compact over time (especially the crown on the right side), but for now this was all the bending my skill allowed without breaking something important. Any comments/critiques would be much appreciated!

Welcome to the IBC, Benjamin. I'm sure there will be many folk wanting to comment/offer advice on your tree over the coming days. For now, all my little experience allows me to say (for now) is that I can see potential for a nice tree in maybe four or five years time. Lovely bark, decent looking nebari and an interesting trunkline, all in 1 tree! You're off to a good start.

Can you tell us any measurements? Have you any thoughts on what you'd like to do with the tree?

Is the little yellow stick in the 1st pic the front of the tree?

Thanks for the comment! Yes, the chopstick in the first picture is to mark the front of the tree. The trunk is over 5 inches in diameter (measured about 4 inches off the soil). The canopy of the tree initially extended for about 3 feet off to the right and there was very little foliage around what is now the left side of the tree. There is now a good bend in the upper trunk to bring the weight of the foliage into a semblance of balance. From the back you can see a stub in the top left part of the tree (as of yet to be carved) where about half of the crown was removed at the time of collection. Because of the orientation of the root ball, the major challenge is going to be getting this in a pot that is properly oriented with respect to the front of the tree. It is planted on the far side of a long box because the majority of the root system is coming off of a single "root" about 3 inches in diameter (its more a continuation of the trunk below the soil level) and there were very few feeders within two feet of the tree at the time of collection. Shortening the "root" and making the root system more compact to the tree is the major work. Each year so far, by digging at the far end of the box and without disturbing the rest of the root system, I have removed a few inches at a time. I then place a 2x4 to fill the void that has been created, making the usable portion of the box smaller over time (illustrated in the photo). The 2x4 gets closer to the tree each year--making the root system more compact while still allowing the tree to recover from collection with minimum additional stress. This is a trick that I learned from Larry Jackel. I will pot it in the Spring.

Benjamin,
What you are calling the back of the tree looks much more interesting and promising than the current front in my opinion.

Mark

Benjamin,

second photo perfect for the front, but you got to rotate the tree clockwise, just a little. branches are more defined from that view.
nice bark character and nebari.

welcome.

regards,
jun

great tree, but juns right 2nd photo is a better front . regards john

Thanks Mark, Jun and John. I am definitely going to have to consider that side more carefully as a candidate for the front of the tree. One problem with that perspective however (and something that didn't show well in either of the two photos) is that the tree moves strongly away from the viewer in what I had been calling the back and towards what I had been calling the front. Should be clearer from the side view below:



You also miss out on some of the awesome upper trunk movement from the "back" although the movement of the lower trunk is more evident (which, admittedly, is more visually powerful):

Decisions, decisions, eh?

Good problems to have though.