tsuga canadensis

What I personally have noticed of the ones is my care, one will achieve much better developement if this time is spent in the ground, they are much slower to respond in a pot, which is great for its refining and maintaing stages.

I have a number of trees that would be better served if they had spent the last 7 or 8 years in the ground instead of a pot, but fortunately I am not in a rush. This is actually my largest tree. I am not dissatisfied with the thickness of the trunk. Although, the taper could use some improvement, I think that could at least partially be remedied by carving and charring the chop site down a ways. Even the reverse taper could be dealt with by removing the twisting (crossing) branch, but I think a few broken rules will add to the appeal of the future design.
My next priority is to sort out the roots and nebari, then I will reconsider taper.

Was really just thinking about a better likelihood for back budding during branch development. Taper shmaper, carving can solve anything, I like the thickness as it stands. Lets see them roots!

I potted into a training pot that a friend gave me for helping water his trees over the summer while he was recovering from double hip replacement. It is not the final pot, but is much shallower and a bit wider than the initial pot. It sure didn't skip a beat after the repotting. I was planning on letting it recover for at least a year, but I am going to need to do some thinning to open up the inside to some more light.. no birds are flying through these branches.

I repotted at a workshop with Roy Nagotoshi. I think he was hoping to style the top and recommended jinning the crossing branch that I have deliberated over in the past. He understood when I said that I would consider jinning the branch, but that I wanted to focus on root development for the time being. He also said the pot was way to big but that it was probably the right size for training. He was also complimentary of my soil mixture (30% akadama, 30% calidama, 30% pumice + 5% spaghnum and 5% vermi-compost) and said that he likes my way of thinking about bonsai...

The first photo was from immediately after the workshop. I did do some trimming and thinning then. and the second photo was a month and a half later from the opposite and back side. I trimmed one long straight bottom branch and used some twine to bring down the remaining portion of the branch that was reduced. I plan on running guy wires to many of the branches in order to bring them down and distribute the foliage so that more light can get in to the center.. I am not sure when I will do this though, maybe not until next year.

I do think there is a better base of roots hiding under there. I remember a wagon wheel of big roots that I had to wedge in to the initial training pot. Should I (next year) add some soil to the bottom to slowly raise the roots out of the pot for a reveal? There are a couple roots that I thought were awkward surface roots, but everyone one says to leave them when I talk about trying to dig down deeper. These heal wounds incredibly fast.

I thinned it out and spun it around about a month ago.

coming along nice

I would use wire, to bring down the lower branches, they currently are curving up, a ''youthful'' trait, straighten them out or bring them down, unless their only function is as sacrifice branches. If they are sacrifice, remove foliage close to trunk to keep them from shading the ''keepers''.

but coming along nice.

Since this photo I wired down the bottom branch.. well I used a "guy twine" tied in a loop and looped it around two brach stubs and then one of the feet of the pot. It pulled it down pretty well, although it will need a real wiring at some point as well to make the movement more natural. I'll probably just do a branch at a time and work my way up the tree. Fortunately the wood is quite flexible, and it is growing so fast it hold the bends I put in rather quickly, with only a little spring back.
There are only a couple sacrifice branches right now and I have cleared out the inner growth on them.. there are more branches that I am letting extend with sacrifice growth, to help with the taper, but I have been reducing that periodically to keep the branches from getting too lumpy. I'm doing a workshop in September at the National Arboretum, and I think I will bring this to try and get the apex sorted out.
I sure can't complain with the amount of growth that I was rewarded with after the repotting this spring. I am looking forward to when I have developed the ramification to the point where I can let it run free and display it's own natural growth habit again.. but first I need to put the base structure in place.

Thanks for the input.

My brother in law from Brazil helped me put this guy in "traction" as he calls it.  Really he did 95% of the work but let me pick the position of the branches before he tied them into place.  There is still a lot of sacrifice growth on the top and on the lowest branches, but pulling them into place really helped me see where the branches within the branches will be. Next spring I'll clear some more space between the designated structure and the sacrificial growth.

David, I like the progress.

Your guy wires are fairly discreet, well done. But it has been 3 years since you started with this tree, you should take the time to learn or get comfortable with wiring the branches, it will give you better control of branch placement and the ability to add up-and-down, left and right movement on all branches. Branches will harden and keep their position more quickly, often years quicker, guy wires often are needed for a decade before the branch will stay in position.

I do want to add, your horticultural skills are excellent, the tree looks healthy. Your design plan is good. Keep up the good work, and thanks for the update.

Thanks Leo. Your input is always appreciated. I'm sure there will be a wiring in this tree's future. I had a feeling the branches might take a while to set based on how much the branches spring back while trimming when the weight of foliage is removed.
I'll comment on the health for general consumption, but, I think this Tsuga really appreciates a portion of spaghnum and other organic components, as well as erring on the side of wet feet as compared to say a black pine. I think my secret weapon that has been powering the prodigious growth has been the AgriForm fertilizer tablets. A fellow bonsai club member turned me on to them saying that they were designed for agricultural and landscape tree use and how black pines exploded with growth when using them in devolpment stages. I gave some to a neighbor for their new vegetable garden and was rewarded with a large box of extra tomatoes; it looks like a jungle over there. The one down side is that they are billed as lasting two years (for use with landscape trees). For bonsai usage, maybe due to the more active watering schedule, they last more like two or three months. Sometimes I'll move the remenants of the spent tablets over to a maple or other broad leaf tree and replace with two or three fresh ones.

Here Is a pic from the spring when the flaws were more visable. Sometimes I regret the chop I did for this apex. It did eliminate a long straight section of trunk, which is generally a good decision, but now I am left with a straight saw's attempt to adjust the taper to the chop, when a stump or hollow could add interest. I'm not too worried even though a stump is no longer an option, but this heals wounds very well and worst case, I Just hide everything with foliage. But , should I go for a hollow?

Hollow at this point might not work very well. You can "nibble away" with diagonal concave cutters or other tools to shape the chop a bit better.

Hiding chops with foliage is a time honored technique, used by many.

It takes practice to do chops, carving and creating hollows, unfortunately most of us don't have the quantity of stock needed to get the practice we need.

Fortunately, trees can and do heal themselves. Time may take care of it.

i would just save the hollow as a plan B in case the foliage doesnt end up doing the job you want...

Here are a few updates on this Tsuga. Some may be happy to see some real wire on there as I brought this to a workshop with Roy Nagatoshi. I was satisfied that the guy wires "held" the bends pretty well within a year.  I think it helps that it put on a fair amount of growth even if I was trimming off redundant bits periodically.  However per another related thread my plan for this year is to slap myself when ever I get the itch to pick up the shears.  I'll have to be real careful to check that the wire isn't biting in, however.  I may also re-apply the guy wires for just a couple of the lower branches.  The thickest wire, really couldn't hold the bend, and the pair of lower branches could use some lateral adjustment.

Further down the road, I want to search for a better nebari on the next repot in a year or two.  I think there is something really nice hiding underground, but was quite timid as to how it would respond on it's first containerized repot in 2015. A post earlier in this thread has reminded me that I could have been much more aggressive with the roots.   Seriously a month and a half between those two photos? I may have to get Rick Moranis to bring over his chain saw to help with the repot.

Also in the next year or two, I'd like to attempt to air-layer off the apical sacrifice branch. I've collected seeds, purchased seeds and sown seeds but so far, 0% germination rate.  I have really bad luck technique with seeds in general, but I'll keep trying.  Based on my experiences with this one, I think it would be fun to beef up some shohin hemlock.

Stylistically, I am thinking I need to do something about the crossing branch, but I haven't committed yet. I have always been drawn to it as a rule breaking branch if it were in front in the second photo.  But the apex now look much better in the first photo(chop not visible) and from that side, the crossing branch only adds reverse taper. Master Nagatoshi (again) recommended jinning it but I compromised by further reducing it for now.  I'll give it a couple more years while I sort out the nebari and as the apex develops. I'm also not ruling out a more radical redesign, like moving the apex down a branch and maybe doing some in-arch grafts to bring in a few branches, but that is more like the 5 year plan if I am unhappy with how this design is developing.





pre-styling winter shot:

I did a good job of putting down the scissors for the growing season, and then really laid into it this winter, hoping to set up for some prodigious back-budding, but I forgot I was hoping to repot into a Sara Rayner pot this Spring. I suppose there is no rush, but besides going shallower, I really need to figure out if there is a better base hiding under there before the flying roots cause to much of a bulge.

I repotted into a Sara Rayner pot a few weeks ago. The buds are just now starting to emerge.

Nice choice of pot and nice tool for working the bottom of the root ball. I need to make something like that for my trees.

I worked the surface roots some, and top dressed with some Erie aggregate. The Nebari is coming along nicely if a bit one sided. I keep going back and forward on whether to repot again this spring to take some off the bottom a bit more aggressively, or if I should wait a year. The roots on this have not seemed to me particularly sensitive.  After taking some of the bottom to lower the tree into the pot more, the four year plan will likely have a couple HBRs (half bare roots. That’s probably how I should do it, now that I have talked through it: Spring after next lower in the pot.. take enough off the bottom so I can fit some fresh “soil” in there. Year 4 HBR. Year 5 other half BR.

Oh, and I took off this flying root a day after the other work and thinking it over

Update: