Yamadori - Prunus mahaleb

Prunus mahaleb  (Mahaleb cherry ) is one of my most favourite species.   I ´ve got about 20 mahaleb yamadories of various sizes.  The one in the text below has been collected in 2012.  Current height without the new shots is about 30 cm.   It makes nice Chuhin bonsai one day I hope.

First spot in winter 2010/11.   Due to the local conditions - very dry rocky terrain -  the tree has developed  a long feeding root connected to the pocket of  soil about 70 cm from the main trunk.  The majority of the roots of the main trunk has penetrated the rock base in a desperate search of scarce water supply.    




   In spring 2011 I have taken some soil off around of the main trunk exposing its roots.  Then the soil has been replaced by a mixture of  coarse akadama,  sphagnum moss and few doses of osmocote fertilizer.   (  I prefer to use this anorganic stuff to commercial organic ones to avoid damage by wild boars who love the taste of my organic pellets.  As the other alternative I am using  the roe deer's or hare's droppings ).  
    In the course of 2011 I have visited the site several times to check the conditions and mainly to bring some water supply.  The long feeding root has been gradually cut off at a reasonable distance from the main trunk.  I planned to keep it in the future design of the tree.

  The tree has been collected in spring 2012 and left alone till the late spring of 2014 when the first basic work has been carried out on the dead wood.

Nov 2013
 




Nov 2014

Limited growth this year:(.    In late spring I have progressed on the dead wood.   Dead bark stripped at the main trunk&conversion of two dead braches on jins.  The second branch on the right and the first one on left.






Objective for next year(s):  
More patience and maximum support to the tree to help him to develop more branches.  New substrate & pot & wood ageing (heat&watter&technical frost used for plumbing ).

Very interesting material with loads of character and I like the dead wood work you've done.

I'm intrigued by your reference to "technical frost used for plumbing" though?

Do you mean the stuff used to freeze pipes? If so what do you do with it? Freeze the dead wood or something or have I miss understood?

Regards

Richard

The technique has been described on this forum by Marcus Watts  - see the link below:

https://ibonsaiclub.forumotion.com/t11571-aging-deadwood-with-winter-in-a-can

Please be careful when using this method and read the instructions on the can before application - not after:).    

It works at best on deadwood with some initial cracks.  On a fresh deadwood I use a tip of a razor blade knife to create the basic structure of cracks.   Then I soak it well with watter ( a piece of wet cloth wrapped or attached to the area helps).   Once the wood is well soaked I use the freezing spray to form the ice.  Finally I blow the area with hot air blower to speed up the process of ice melting.   Repeated several times.  

If you decide to test it I would recommend to start on a piece of wood.  Good luck.

Vlad

Thanks for the link Vlad, interesting technique.

Regards

Richard

That's a nice tree and interesting technique. There's a wild pear that I have my eye one this spring for collecting.

There is a wealth of different techniques to improve our trees. The challenge is to find them and then to pick  the one that would work for our trees the best.

Good luck with your pear. It is a great tree for bonsai. It creates quite early nice bark - alligator skin.



BTW. As you know there is a potential transmittable disease caused by Gymnosporangium sabinae that could affect Juniperus grown nearby pears.   In my garden I do grow only Juniperus communis.  It seems that this one is resiliant despite the fact my pears face minor invasion of the fungus every year.

Vlad

U ant you just stay on top of a fungazide to prevent the transfer?

You are right. This is probably the only way to keep the disease down apart from being lucky and grow strong or less susceptible plants.   I also cut all affected leaves if the fungus still  appears.   This should work for the pear. I am not sure how this work for junipers.   I only grow common junipers and they seems to be more resistant then Savins or Chinese J.   Maybe someone wiser could help?

Vlad

After the cold days in March the April has delivered more nice and sunny days.   The Mahalebs have started to open their blossoms and the garden is full of their distinctive fragrance.  Last year it has attracted a flood of bees - this year they are quite scarce to see all around the place I live.   It seems that the mortality over last winter was quite high.  I hope they will get better soon.

The Mahaleb from this thread has spend the winter in a good shape.   No buds on the lower section of the trunk though.   I will give it a try this year and if there is no buds then I will make a thread graft.     The dead wood is ageing nicely.

Lovely tree! Ive not heard of mahaleb before (tho I'm seeong it pop up on a few bonsai sites. It looks similar to P. mume.

Thank you for your comment Larry.
Here in the Czech Republic where I am located there are in my opinion two species that can match Mume and are less demanding in terms of plant growing methods. One of them is Mahaleb and the other one is the Blackthorn ( P. spinosa ). Great Mahaleb bonsai trees are more common here than the ones from Blackthorns though.  But there are some great Blackthorns such as:  http://wildwoodbonsai.blogspot.cz/2012/03/beautiful-blackthorn-prunus-spinosa.html. I LOVE IT.

Vlad wrote:The technique has been described on this forum by Marcus Watts  - see the link below:

https://ibonsaiclub.forumotion.com/t11571-aging-deadwood-with-winter-in-a-can

Please be careful when using this method and read the instructions on the can before application - not after:).    

It works at best on deadwood with some initial cracks.  On a fresh deadwood I use a tip of a razor blade knife to create the basic structure of cracks.   Then I soak it well with watter ( a piece of wet cloth wrapped or attached to the area helps).   Once the wood is well soaked I use the freezing spray to form the ice.  Finally I blow the area with hot air blower to speed up the process of ice melting.   Repeated several times.  

If you decide to test it I would recommend to start on a piece of wood.  Good luck.

Vlad

Hi Vlado,

According to your experience, how many times you have to apply freezing to see the results? Thanks

I am sure you will hate the answer Maros.

1. IT DEPENDS...
Factors: Species, density of annual rings, age of the deadwood ( level of deterioration ) and most probably some others

For the mahaleb on this post I have applied 5 - 7 treatments . Soaking, freezing and heating.

2 . Most important: I am NOT using this method anymore. There is a danger to damage the live veins and loose some branches or even the tree. So I leave it to the Nature.
The only thing I still do nowadays: spraying trunks with cold water several times a day during hot summer days... Not sure if that works but at least there is no visible harm.

Thanks for your reply. Did you manage to kill some tree by this treatment? I was thinking it could make sense to sprinkle the deadwood on warm winter days when freezing occurs during the night. Or heat some parts of the wood with heat pistol during the freezing day. Not easy to do obviously, when trees are in winter storage.

I have not got to the point of ireversible changes. Just have seen the potential danger. The method you have described or the one mentioned by Marcus are pretty much the same as the natural process, isn't. The difference is time. It is up to us to decide how important this variable is

ah shame ... a reply after 3 years and no photo of the tree Nice work, would like to see how it developed.