limited options for Carpinus Betulus

got it in march this year, a carpinus betulus from a hedge of about 18 to 20yo.
No real spectacular find, i picked it (could get 7) because it also had this second 'trunk'/low branch, and a reasonable trunk diameter (about 8 to 9 cm on lowest part), some roots i could work with...

As spring and summer came, styling options seemed to be limited, so i went for a broomstyle (there were some bigger branches at about the same height), but not a pure style. New shoots were strong and healthy so I wired them to get a first start. Offcourse, in my mind i know this wiring is just to get started and to get some movement going right at the beginning. After growing freely long enough in 2013 and 2014, i'll prune back hard again, and rebuild, etc. Also with this lower second trunk

There is one major thing i hate having with this tree now, and that is the big knobs that were left after initial pruning when digging it out. I know I cant put 'questions' here, but any remarks on that won't hurt me . I'm still thinking what would be best to do about that, except plainly cut them again right to the surface of the trunk and hope i wont make one big wound there (2 knobs close to each other), that would be a risk for the branches right above. Well in nature, real old carpinus betulus look knobby too so that helps

So, 10 more years of work, here i come

howdy yves,
to be honest the tree does have possibilities.if it were mine i would grow out the small trunk to swell the base a couple seasons and cut it off totaly.second to pick a leader ,i would say the top right one is best,recut the trunk angled away from the leader and loose all other branches. the tree should bud were the old branches were so growing the first branch from the lowest scar zone will help to hide that problem.then its just grow and cut and grow again.
just an opinion ,hope it helps the vision

-keith- wrote:howdy yves,
to be honest the tree does have possibilities.if it were mine i would grow out the small trunk to swell the base a couple seasons and cut it off totaly.second to pick a leader ,i would say the top right one is best,recut the trunk angled away from the leader and loose all other branches. the tree should bud were the old branches were so growing the first branch from the lowest scar zone will help to hide that problem.then its just grow and cut and grow again.
just an opinion ,hope it helps the vision

thanks, but no thanks I know there should have been more pictures, sorry for that, so yes ok i know that one branch maybe seems ok to build a new top... but considering all the rest, well this is really not an option because i'm not fieldgrowing it anymore so this would not take 10 years but 20 years to build something credible. Only fieldgrowing it again for many years would create a branch that would be thick enough to act as a new trunk leader. Imho if i continue with the broom-thing, when i will have grown these branches thicker at the bases, it will mask the wound more, and more so when its in leaf. And yes, i agree, now it looks ridicolous, but i'm thinking in 5 years how these branches will look, not as juvenile as now, the eye will not be focused on the centre and that wound any more (i hope).

I was not really aiming for advices to tell me to do a totall restyle once more, with this kind of material, but there you go, a tree posted always brings extra stuff too :-)

I think i see what you are aiming for - and it will take a few more years but with material like that you know it will.
The wound will only get smaller when you let the tree grow freely, only cutting branches once a year or not at all but if you want to keep it in shape you will have to choose some leaders and keep them in direction you want. (in any case the main trunk will be hollow - but that can look very appealing )
Keep the lower trunk in the same manner, i think it will make a nice canopy lower down and break the monotony of a single more/less straight trunk.
I hope this helps any way.

Best...

Gašper

Hello everyone,

This tree almost has a reverse taper going. It might be worth trying to carve out a section to improve taper. Attached is a rough idea of what I would attempt. The branches marked with an arrow may need to be wired in a different direction depending on amount of area carved out. Just a thought. Thanks for sharing.
Abe

GašperG wrote:I think i see what you are aiming for - and it will take a few more years but with material like that you know it will.
The wound will only get smaller when you let the tree grow freely, only cutting branches once a year or not at all but if you want to keep it in shape you will have to choose some leaders and keep them in direction you want. (in any case the main trunk will be hollow - but that can look very appealing )
Keep the lower trunk in the same manner, i think it will make a nice canopy lower down and break the monotony of a single more/less straight trunk.
I hope this helps any way.

Best...

Gašper

thanks and yes, good idea of that hollow...i thought of it, but then you have the 'but-s' (with one -t). Possibly yes.

best to you too

Eastern Bonsai wrote:Hello everyone,

This tree almost has a reverse taper going. It might be worth trying to carve out a section to improve taper. Attached is a rough idea of what I would attempt. The branches marked with an arrow may need to be wired in a different direction depending on amount of area carved out. Just a thought. Thanks for sharing.
Abe

thanks for commenting; and yes a bit of reverse taper, luckyly the base i a bit wider, and the second trunk visually helps too. Uhu, deadwood, hollow, carve...yes possibly. But good addition of that extra branch lower in front...didn think of that, might consider it. First see the development next year.

thank you, best

I'm sure there are probably problems with this suggestion, and as a beginner in the hobby I'm certainly not qualified to make suggestions(particularly stylistic ones), but if the knobs from the original harvest of the tree are an issue would it be better to use that portion of the tree for any deadwood or carving? Utilizing the knobbed area(the alternate side of what EB had posted) for this would get rid of the part you dislike if you didn't want to let it grow freely, while only removing a small part of the current branch structure. Personally, I like it as you have it now, it reminds me of the beat up stumps behind our old garage that come back every year regardless of how much cutting we did to them. I think it has the potential to look very cool regardless of the path you take with it.

Personally I would make a very classic, sweet and linear composition. In summit I hold alone two it copper and it would construct the entire plant from those. For the “plant-son” it is very easier, to develop all on the left. This mine virtual.



Good work , Daniel

Hi Yves

The trunk is quit terrible..long, straight and with a beginning to a inverted taper....only the lowest part looks interesting to me..I would cut the tree as suggested in my drawing, and make a sumobonsai


Kind regards Yvonne

Onybonsai-Daniel wrote:Personally I would make a very classic, sweet and linear composition. In summit I hold alone two it copper and it would construct the entire plant from those. For the “plant-son” it is very easier, to develop all on the left. This mine virtual.



Good work , Daniel

Thank you Daniel, and yes also this idea came accross my mind, but there is a problem with 2-dimensional pictures here, if I only have these 2 branches left it would be a very 2-dimensional tree in real too. I could get more new branches coming of these 2 to fill it more (like your virtual and comment explains), but still... In the back is a little stump of an old branch that doesnt look too bad... But you have a good point in making the inside/centre more open in future !

Yvonne Graubaek wrote:Hi Yves

The trunk is quit terrible..long, straight and with a beginning to a inverted taper....only the lowest part looks interesting to me..I would cut the tree as suggested in my drawing, and make a sumobonsai
Kind regards Yvonne

Terrible i would not call it, but as i said it certainly is not the best raw material. Closeup picture of this kind of 'straight' at this kind of stage in development, always looks bad, worse than other more informal shapes and styles of trees. But then again, you have em in nature too, these rather thin trunks with a broom on top, and alos in bonsai. I know you like sumo's but i dont look for sumo in 'every' tree. I never had a broomstyle before, and its only since 2012 i got my first carpinus's . As i said in reply to another poster, i am not looking for a complete rebuild and fieldgrow again. If I would not do that with the idea you suggest, i will only have a big base and way too thin branches on top.. sure you could fill it with twigs and leaves, but if you would not be able to let shoots grow frealy for some years in the ground, they wont thicken enough nor fast enough. Or... i would have to carve half of the trunk away.. In your suggestion I would be left with a tiny shohin, i dont like that with native tree like carpinus betulus... leaf size would be a slight issue...and the drama of a carpinus (like in nature) would be totally lost.

Still, i understand what you meant... looking for the ideal... but i'm not going there

Hi Yves

It look like you know what you want, thats nice.....From the topshot, would I have build up a taper. If the tree is now newly pottet, is it possible to grow a very strong branch in one or two summers...with the help of fertilizer....I have tree carpinus betulus....and none of them is sumo ...I would never make a broom out of this kind of tree, I dont think it fits this trees growinghabits.

Kind regards Yvonne

Yvonne Graubaek wrote:Hi Yves

It look like you know what you want, thats nice.....From the topshot, would I have build up a taper. If the tree is now newly pottet, is it possible to grow a very strong branch in one or two summers...with the help of fertilizer....I have tree carpinus betulus....and none of them is sumo ...I would never make a broom out of this kind of tree, I dont think it fits this trees growinghabits.

Kind regards Yvonne

OK, noted.
But about 'broom', i dont mean a formal broomstyle here like the ones explained in all the respectable books, nor by japanese standards. In the long run, I dont want to keep all the branches that you see know, i want it more open, more flattened out, curly dramatic branches... and here in belgium you do see that, especially alongside the edges of forest, and at old farmhouses in hedges or at the edges of farmland, where they used to cut these trees to a trunk stump and then they grew again, in cycli of about 10 to 20 years. Unfortunately now these kind of natural/cultureal relics are almost gone...

Yvonne,
here is what i mean with these examples in nature (cultural heritage of carpinus being used to chop for branches). Not entirely similar, but the idea, and i only can start from what i have. The picture is an example of trees in a nature reserve in Flanders, Belgium.
Greetings

Hi Yves

This is not trees, like they grow in the nature...they were cut back...humanshaped.

Kind regards yvonne

Yvonne Graubaek wrote:Hi Yves

This is not trees, like they grow in the nature...they were cut back...humanshaped.

Kind regards yvonne

Well Yvonne... cultural heritage does mean something to me... in europe this practice of forest/tree cultivation is known since at least 1000 years, Cutting back trees like Salix, Carpinus, Fraxinus,.. has been part of culture since the big forest cutbacks in dark middleages, lets say 1200.

Bonsai is all about a cultural thing too no, only the pure natural style will give the image of a natural tree, all the rest is a mix.

You would have great difficulty in finding anything in the world that has not been human-handled or shaped... except some of your forests there, and like forest in Poland, some in eastern europe

yves71277 wrote:

Yvonne Graubaek wrote:Hi Yves

This is not trees, like they grow in the nature...they were cut back...humanshaped.

Kind regards yvonne

Well Yvonne... cultural heritage does mean something to me... in europe this practice of forest/tree cultivation is known since at least 1000 years, Cutting back trees like Salix, Carpinus, Fraxinus,.. has been part of culture since the big forest cutbacks in dark middleages, lets say 1200.

Bonsai is all about a cultural thing too no, only the pure natural style will give the image of a natural tree, all the rest is a mix.

You would have great difficulty in finding anything in the world that has not been human-handled or shaped... except some of your forests there, and like forest in Poland, some in eastern europe

I know....and if you want to make a tree like this, do I not have one problem with it.

Kind regards Yvonne

[/quote] I know....and if you want to make a tree like this, do I not have one problem with it.

Kind regards Yvonne[/quote]

:-) It sure will be a challenge, in that i follow

Hi Yves

Looking at the photo of the trees by the road, and your material, does it look to me like you already have reached your goal....two more years, and a nice pot will do the trick

Kind regards Yvonne

Yvonne Graubaek wrote:Hi Yves

Looking at the photo of the trees by the road, and your material, does it look to me like you already have reached your goal....two more years, and a nice pot will do the trick

Kind regards Yvonne

nice joke Yvonne...

Not just a joke, but not what I would have done. I still think my option is better....sometimes interesting things, come out of diffrent thinking....I am not a person who want to bring a end, to someone elses ideas, or new thinking....it can maybe be a style in european bonsaistyle in the future...why not?

Kind regards Yvonne

Yvonne Graubaek wrote:Not just a joke, but not what I would have done. I still think my option is better....sometimes interesting things, come out of diffrent thinking....I am not a person who want to bring a end, to someone elses ideas, or new thinking....it can maybe be a style in european bonsaistyle in the future...why not?

Kind regards Yvonne

This carpinus is not the end, only the beginning. I have more carpinus, for more and other ideas, maybe i'll try a short-cut(ting) with one of my others

greets and thanks to all for all the opinions, and some interesting comments

I admire your want to style a tree in a "pollarded style but feel this styling is very wide of the mark. Pollarded or coppiced trees have a great deal of energy in a vertical plane initially, whereas your wiring is mainly in the horizontal plane. I don't think it is very convincing as a pollarded image.

Crepe murder!(sorry, a coppicing joke). While I admire your attempt to style this bonsai in a cultural framework, I can't believe it will ever be a standalone bonsai. A bonsai must stand alone and and evoke the image of a tree without the interjection or explanation of the creator. If you need to show us a picture to explain what you're trying to achieve, how much more difficult will that evoked image be in the finished bonsai, at show in 10 years, without the benefit of your picture and explanation. Seems an impossible hill to climb unless you live next door to that preserve....I wouldn't go for Yvonne's cuts, I'd keep the smaller trunk and make it the new leader, or at least the beginning of the next step up in taper transition, you'll save years that way.
Ryan
http://japanesebonsaipots.net/