Phoenix grafts

I'm planning a phoenix graft using a dead trunk of a hinoki cypress with a great root base, and it's a straight trunk. I've never done one of these before, so I'm wondering about what order to do lime sulphur and wood hardener. It would seem to me that lime sulphur would be first, then wood hardener, but I'm open to suggestions. Also, I'm wondering what the best way would be to secure the base of the dead trunk into the pot. Would fastening it to a block of wood be good? Is it advisable to have any of the treated deadwood below the soil?

I only have one small phoenix graft, so may not be the prime expert on the topic.  Mine is straight also.  The deadwood is "lighterwood" pine, which is virtually impervious to rotting.  I don't know how Hinoki is.  I used lime sulfur, followed after several days with Minwax wood hardener several weeks before I put the thing together.  I sanded the whole thing to remove the gloss from the Minwax.  

The deadwood just barely enters the soil.  I rely on the tree to hold the thing steady and it works -- more of less.

Mine is small (less than 11 inches), so I used Gorilla Glue to hold the trunk into the groove.  I built this one back in '95 or '96.  I did it just to see if I could, and have had little inclination to make another -- though I have several other pieces of lighterwood.







Hope this is some help.

Thanks Jim. Doing the lime sulphur first makes the most sense. The trunk for this one will be a variation on a formal upright, like an extreme lightning strike.  

old post...
jim, you simply gorilla glued the tree to the deadwood ???

did you find that inhibited any of the grafting of the tree to the deadood ???

i ask because i tried my first one over the holiday, but secured the 2 together using a different method...
(which i will describe when i post pics of my attempt)

j

im, you simply gorilla glued the tree to the deadwood ???

Yup.

did you find that inhibited any of the grafting of the tree to the deadood ???

Well, tanuki don't really "graft" themselves to the deadwood; it IS dead, after all. They do tend to grow into the grooves, and "stick" to the wood if given the chance.

I, however, haven't given this one much of a chance to do that since I've had it in very small pots all the time. Over the long run, this hasn't been 100% successful. If you've used GG, you know that it froths and bubbles up and expands all over the place if you aren't very careful with the application. I've learned that it also weathers and cracks along edges exposed to the elements, where I'd been using the froth as something of a filler. That has made me use wood filler to disguise the crackles.

It holds the tree in place just fine.

ok - thanks !

JimLewis wrote: It holds the tree in place just fine.

i would be more surprised if it didn't !

I used glue because the tree was simply too small to hammer a nail in, much less a screw.

hopefully what i did might be another option for smaller branches....