Blended Trees

I recently found an article online from a known bonsai instructor who teaches blended trees as a technique. I have seen trees do this in nature to some extent, and the logic is sound, but has anyone seen this technique as she describes done successfully? I have a few field maple seedlings that may be perfect for this experiment but I wanted to see if anyone else has done this, or seen the finished results.


http://www.pfmbonsai.com/docs/BonsaiTypes/Blended_tree_close_up.pdf

This is what you're looking for....

https://ibonsaiclub.forumotion.com/t33-fused-trunk-trident-acer-buergerianum?highlight=fused

I have seen this done with Ficus. One comment, you have to be very careful with pruning because it would be easy to remove all the foliage/branches from a single trunk. If this done that trunk might not survive. Some species will merge over the years and this will no longer be a concern, but even with Ficus it will be years.

Billy M. Rhodes wrote:I have seen this done with Ficus. One comment, you have to be very careful with pruning because it would be easy to remove all the foliage/branches from a single trunk. If this done that trunk might not survive. Some species will merge over the years and this will no longer be a concern, but even with Ficus it will be years.

Years, yes, but Will Feldman's trees are the size of a softball or larger and only about 5 years. Sure, they do need more work and ironing out things that happen over time (one of the trunks dies, or they dont fuse, for example) but the technique is very intriguing. Pete Jones in DC has a nephew, I believe, who has also done quite a lot of experimenting with this. I will try and find a link to his work.

Thanks all, just what i was looking for, any more pics of this would be greatly appreciated, trying to do my homework before I give this a shot

Here is the link to Greg Wentzel's blog. At the end is the fusion section.

http://fusionbonsai.com/author/gregwentzel/

Chase Rosade of Rosade Bonsai has been growing 2 trees using this method. I viewed these trees 2 years ago in his private area and have recently viewed them just a week ago. They have grown in size by at least 5x what they were when I first saw them. It is an interesting method and I will probably try one or two in the next few years.

Well after seeing the pictures everyone was so helpful in providing I decided to give this a go initially on a smaller scale using three of my 2nd year field maple seedlings I have been growing, not using a ton of material I obviously didn't need to use a frame underneath, it also allowed me to somewhat twist and intwine the three trees together creating what I hope will merge into some very nice trunk movement, I will most likely also wire to give the trunk a little more of a subtle curve later in the progression before I leave it to grow. As its already mid spring and the trees fit together as I would like I decided to leave the foliage in tact (minus a few cuts here and there) I was also able to pull this off without doing any root pruning and with minimal damage to the roots so a few days out of direct sun and hopefully all will be well. Should be interesting to see how it progresses the next few years.