New member, interested in the art of tanuki.

Hi there,

New member from NSW, Australia. I hope to make a start on a few pheonix grafts using shimpaku and drift wood, i have collected over the last 12 months. Iv taken info from a few different sources, Dan bartons book and this forum have helped me the most.

My questions are:

What season is best for grafting?
Iv noticed alot of people using gorilla glue to graft, has anyone came across any ill effect from using it???
And what do you guys use to preserve the wood?


Thank you in advance.

hi,

first i'd be repeatedly soaking the wood to leach out the salts and excess minerals from the sea water, then, if you want the traditional white bleached appearance you use lime sulphar solution, if you want a natural appearance you can use resin based wood 'hardeners' used in horticulture and gardening. Lime sulphar treated trunks are sanded off and re-applied annually for best results.

I think any part of the growing season is fine to do the graft - it takes years to attach to the wood anyway. Better results cetainly come from carving the dead wood a bit so there is a channel to put the whip in.

No need to use glue.....cable ties are used by many but need moving and re-doing or they leave imprints on the bark, I use screws through the whip into the dead wood on the inside of curves - works perfectly and wont come apart. Recently i am experimenting with wood filler in any small gaps between the two, then the live vein will roll over the filler better (and quicker) that growing into the gaps.

have fun with the method

Marcus

marcus watts wrote:hi,

first i'd be repeatedly soaking the wood to leach out the salts and excess minerals from the sea water, then, if you want the traditional white bleached appearance you use lime sulphar solution, if you want a natural appearance you can use resin based wood 'hardeners' used in horticulture and gardening. Lime sulphar treated trunks are sanded off and re-applied annually for best results.

I think any part of the growing season is fine to do the graft - it takes years to attach to the wood anyway. Better results cetainly come from carving the dead wood a bit so there is a channel to put the whip in.

No need to use glue.....cable ties are used by many but need moving and re-doing or they leave imprints on the bark, I use screws through the whip into the dead wood on the inside of curves - works perfectly and wont come apart. Recently i am experimenting with wood filler in any small gaps between the two, then the live vein will roll over the filler better (and quicker) that growing into the gaps.

have fun with the method

Marcus

Ok thank you for the reply marcus, Im waiting on some grafting wax before i can start, only problem i for see is that the shimpaku im using is too thick [at least 30-40mm thick] but they seem like hardy trees.
Do you strip the bark back that makes contact with the dead wood?

tanuki does not involve grafting in the normal sense...it is impossible to graft to dead wood. As Marcus suggested, typically you carve a slot in the deadwood for the live material to fit into...you then use ties, screws, glue or whatever to hold the live material in place within the channel on the deadwood...hopefully in time the live material grows to fill the channel and stay in place without support. The two pieces of material will never actually "grow" together because the deadwood is dead! At best, tanuki is a temporary solution and the junction between the dead and living material will always be the weak link in a composition. In my opinion it is very difficult to create a tanuki that is believable and natural looking....all that being said, I do hope that you have success in your efforts.
John

jgeanangel wrote:tanuki does not involve grafting in the normal sense...it is impossible to graft to dead wood. As Marcus suggested, typically you carve a slot in the deadwood for the live material to fit into...you then use ties, screws, glue or whatever to hold the live material in place within the channel on the deadwood...hopefully in time the live material grows to fill the channel and stay in place without support. The two pieces of material will never actually "grow" together because the deadwood is dead! At best, tanuki is a temporary solution and the junction between the dead and living material will always be the weak link in a composition. In my opinion it is very difficult to create a tanuki that is believable and natural looking....all that being said, I do hope that you have success in your efforts.
John

Hi John, thank you for the clarification, my questions came from people stripping the bark before fastening it the drift wood, what is the purpose of this? is it to promote swelling in the trunk???


Ps Im a huge fan of your Channel