limited options for Carpinus Betulus

Nice to see Will and Ryan tune in with their opinion on pollarded trees
But I still think my cutting of the tree is much better than Ryans suggestion....the branch he want to keep, is placed really poorly, and the way it leave the trunk, is not something I would care about keeping....it will never make a nicely ballanced tree.
My suggestion takes one or two years more...only one if the the tree is prober fertilized...it will give a much better tree, worth waiting this short time for.

Kind regards Yvonne

will baddeley wrote: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.

Thanks WIll, and i really hate to disagree with people who have more experience, but pls understand this initial wiring to do something as a start...this is not at all how i want the branches/canopy to look when its finished. It is ONLY to have an initial start of movement here, as should be a first wiring. Its only branches of this year but if i wait 2 or 3 years i will have to bend (and crack) these thick hard carpinus branches or leave wire damage. I can prune as hard as i want in next years.

Ryan B wrote: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/

I agree, and i repeat this is not the best material. So you can be very hard/tough on this tree with less potential, and then it is offourse all obvious what you say about how a bonsai must stand alone.

I only show the picture to make a point about natural or cultural aspects of trees in the landscape, i didnt say anything else, it was explanatory in yvonne's and my replies. So i dont want it to look exactly like that (i only mentioned 'similar', as to cultural thing). Its just about interpretation of a reply.

greetings and thanks

Yvonne Graubaek wrote:Nice to see Will and Ryan tune in with their opinion on pollarded trees
But I still think my cutting of the tree is much better than Ryans suggestion....the branch he want to keep, is placed really poorly, and the way it leave the trunk, is not something I would care about keeping....it will never make a nicely ballanced tree.
My suggestion takes one or two years more...only one if the the tree is prober fertilized...it will give a much better tree, worth waiting this short time for.

Kind regards Yvonne

I actually dont have a clue what Pollarded means, i'm belgian so i try to talk my best of english here.
I actually will never have 'many' perfect balanced trees i think, nor is it my ambition only to have the best trees. I also want trees who look a bit bad...like in nature

Coppiced trees are cut to the ground and all growth comes from the base or "stool". Pollarded trees were more common in woods with Deer or Pigs that got food from the ground. The trees being managed at that height meant that new shoots could not be nibbled by livestock.
If I was to try this style, I would train all the branches in a flame style with very little lateral growth and many, many leaders.

will baddeley wrote:Coppiced trees are cut to the ground and all growth comes from the base or "stool". Pollarded trees were more common in woods with Deer or Pigs that got food from the ground. The trees being managed at that height meant that new shoots could not be nibbled by livestock.
If I was to try this style, I would train all the branches in a flame style with very little lateral growth and many, many leaders.

ok Will thank you for explaining that. Well, then i can say i'm not really aiming at that pollarded style. Yeah i know what you mean, like with willows we have here. Difficult to really explain in what way i want it. I dont want a 'copy' of a pollarded tree, more a freestyle (with this material i have and its possibilities) of a semi-pollarded tree then... like maybe a very old and longtime neglected pollarde tree, like there are many here in Flanders in certain regions, willows and rarely these carpinus. The one i posted as a example in discussion with Yvonne, is simply one i could find easily on the net. I mean like a neglected one, with branches broken or pulled down by weight because of not maintaining them for long. When i find an example i'll make a picture for suer

Thanks all for the replies

yves71277 wrote:

Yvonne Graubaek wrote:Nice to see Will and Ryan tune in with their opinion on pollarded trees
But I still think my cutting of the tree is much better than Ryans suggestion....the branch he want to keep, is placed really poorly, and the way it leave the trunk, is not something I would care about keeping....it will never make a nicely ballanced tree.
My suggestion takes one or two years more...only one if the the tree is prober fertilized...it will give a much better tree, worth waiting this short time for.

Kind regards Yvonne

I actually dont have a clue what Pollarded means, i'm belgian so i try to talk my best of english here.
I actually will never have 'many' perfect balanced trees i think, nor is it my ambition only to have the best trees. I also want trees who look a bit bad...like in nature

Hi Yves

I am happy Ryan and Will could give you the answers you wanted/needed.....The rest is taste, and this is not the issue in this topic

Kind regards yvonne

Hi,

This was 'one' of the ideas i was playing with, but i did not mention it because i would have to use the experimental 'sandev-method' of opening the trunk, split it and put wedges in it to expand it, roughly by about 2cm extra width. In my head is an idea how i would do that, and try make sure it does not crack or split all the way up to the top.
In the virtual I made it wider up until the first couple of 'knobs' you see on the original pictures. This would certainly be tricky, take long time to reach the width i suppose, and with risk of severe damage or even death. But still, worth the effort of an experiment, with fairly 'uselesse' material after all :-)
The branch structure was allready in my mind, loose couple of branches, and add many more to existing branches.

Cheers

yves71277 wrote:
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

Just to get back to the initial question, rather than suggest a different style.. If you don't trim the stubs, but drill the inside out, you should be able to create uro's. Leaving bits of the bark won't be a problem: In a year or so the bark will rub off. This will leave the bark between the stubs alive.

Just a thought.

leatherback wrote:

yves71277 wrote:
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

Just to get back to the initial question, rather than suggest a different style.. If you don't trim the stubs, but drill the inside out, you should be able to create uro's. Leaving bits of the bark won't be a problem: In a year or so the bark will rub off. This will leave the bark between the stubs alive.

Just a thought.

Yes, could be useful to think about that, whatever definite styling option i choose.
Thank you

Today, I got it to next step (hopefully ). Turned out a bit different (totally split up to 1/2 - 2/3 of the trunk)
Fingers crossed...

You run the risk that the wood dries out too much now. Please consider covering the trunk for a few weeks, eithe rby filling the cracks with petroleum jelly or by wraaping the whole trunk with 'fresh keeping foil'

leatherback wrote:You run the risk that the wood dries out too much now. Please consider covering the trunk for a few weeks, eithe rby filling the cracks with petroleum jelly or by wraaping the whole trunk with 'fresh keeping foil'

yup, risks are reality but i can live with the risk i took here. Maybe the wood looks a bit thinner than in real, but yes there still is risk involved. I thought about foil, but decided not to in the end. Actually, i felt quite confident here, because I know what underneath the ground to feed the live wood/veins. What i will do is keep it from (late) frost. I'll think about more protection of the exposed wood later. Hornbeam is very hard wood, i dont see real problems occuring very soon.

The main worry I have is re. the sapwood, which has to transport the water from the roots to the canopy. If you have your wood exposed like this, you run the risk that your sapwood dries out, killing the tree. But you have the tree in front of you, and we are working from a picture: You have the better judgement options here.

leatherback wrote:The main worry I have is re. the sapwood, which has to transport the water from the roots to the canopy. If you have your wood exposed like this, you run the risk that your sapwood dries out, killing the tree. But you have the tree in front of you, and we are working from a picture: You have the better judgement options here.

yes I know, the sapwood
But let me comfort you, because I noticed something that will need my intervention because after I left it, repotted, I noticed this morning that the tension on the wood (wooden wedge) must have been too high because the crack has extended further to the top, noticeably on the back. I now have only a mere 2 or 3 inches connected wood on the top and that will cause problems if i dont intervene.
So what I will do is lower the wedge, and hope i can move it without doing more damage And then do either one of these:
- put a cloth or other protection around the split trunk that i want to be closed againg or cambium healed and tighten it with a metal adjustable ring (taking care not to tighten it too much);
- alternative 'closing' with screwdriver, screws...
- or a mix of both

who said bonsai-ing or messing about wasn't fun
But if it all works out fine, what a 'scarface' of a tree i will have

Today, i removed the wedge and put it on ground level to lower the tension that cracked the trunk too much, all the way up to the top. Two screws to close the top part of the trunk again, put seal over the cracks. We'll see what happens, the wood was not entirely opened up in the top part.

I also added 2 roots by threadgrafting 2 young plants. Both of their trunks leave through the cracked trunk of the 'mother tree'.. I put seal on the wounds

if this tree survives all this, maybe i should only collect carpinus in the future

yves71277 wrote:

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

Have you ever heard of the Amazon. Africa. Australia. Its places that you dont find in Europe. And they never had to built an 'Armada'..............

Andre Beaurain wrote:

yves71277 wrote:

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

Have you ever heard of the Amazon. Africa. Australia. Its places that you dont find in Europe. And they never had to built an 'Armada'..............

well, yes i've heard of those places, it rings a bell, rest assured
offcourse i answered withing the limits of this discussion.