Candelabra Larch

Hi guys,

I just wanted to post my last little monster that I wired a few weeks ago.

Things I am aware of that it definitely still needs:

1. A re-pot to find out what the root situation is and also for obvious aesthetic reasons.
2. I need to make the jins more realistic and hit them when a hobby tool.
3. Filling out the strange areas with additional foliage to make it more believable.

I had a lot of fun with this one and wanted to make use of all the unconventional branches and shape this tree already had.  

Doesn't look like a candleabra to me.
Looks like a mess. You got reverse taper and too many branches coming out of one area.
I would think about cutting it off to the lowest branch and grow it out from there.

Hi Frary,

Thanks for the feedback! Sure it's strange now but it should make more sense in a few years ; )

I was a little harsh.

No worries, it was your natural response and your opinion, which is useful feedback. I would rather have that reaction than some artificial back patting.

The tree came with a lot of ugly but interesting branches with which I wanted to experiment. I believe it will be an interesting design with more ramification in a few years. Pot will help

Thomas Urban wrote:No worries, it was your natural response and your opinion, which is useful feedback. I would rather have that reaction than some artificial back patting.

The tree came with a lot of ugly but interesting branches with which I wanted to experiment. I believe it will be an interesting design with more ramification in a few years. Pot will help

How is the tree going to correct itself over the next few years? These things don't happen by themselves in fact in the case of what you have going on here it is more likely it will get much worse. You need to decide on reducing the effect of that unattractive knuckle every thing is growing out of. Just my opinion.

Thomas Urban wrote:No worries, it was your natural response and your opinion, which is useful feedback. I would rather have that reaction than some artificial back patting.

The tree came with a lot of ugly but interesting branches with which I wanted to experiment. I believe it will be an interesting design with more ramification in a few years. Pot will help

You wrote---Pot will help. No it wont. You are looking at the wrong solutions. You can put a pig in a tuxedo and only have a pig in a tuxedo nothing more. The only thing you can do is make bacon. OK so there are the smart ass remarks. You are going to have to reduce down that mess in the middle of the tree. You have one branch coming out of the middle of the knuckle going straight up that I would remove. I would cut out or jin the majority of the branches growing out of the left of the knuckle and redesign the tree from the two or three major branches you have left growing on the right. You can also carve down the excess mass forming the knuckle of the left of the tree to lessen the effect of the mass.

Thanks for your feedback and advice Vance.

This will not be a normal bonsai tree but rather something strange you find in the higher elevations of the Alps. This is the reason I grabbed it and I see that it is causing negative emotional feedback because it isn't following the standard Bonsai rules right now.
There are a few things that I plan on cutting off but I will wait until mid-summer to see further what makes sense in this design. I'm sure it will change anyway since we're always pushing the trees to be aesthetically proportional and they are always trying to grow into a dense canopy, with maximum photosynthetic efficiency regardless of our intended design.
The knuckle is a common trait of high alpine trees where many newly formed leaders fight against each other for dominance.

I have a few single trunk trees and I think if one only makes single trunk trees with branches that go side to side, then one is extremely limited to otherwise interesting possibilities.

I'm not sure about the "smart-ass remarks" comment? Were you referring to the pigs in a tuxedo comment or to what I wrote earlier? I genuinely appreciate all kinds of feedback, that was not being a smart-ass.

Here are some awesome trees that I've been inspired by. : ) They all have some sort of aspect I would like to incorporate into the design:

Hi, just recently re-potted into another Jiři Svačina container

I can see where you are going on this one and I am sure it will inspire you as it grows. I think it is a little busy still and sometime it is good to just let it grow if you are not 100% sure where you want it to be. The beauty of bonsai is it is a living art and no matter what you decide today it may not go exactly to your plan tomorrow.

Sometime breaking the rules of bonsai will make very extraordinary plants. If you look at a lot of prime specimens made by the masters you will see rules are often broken in one way or another. The so called rules are only guides we try to go by I don't think my relatives a hundred or more years ago had books telling them what they could or couldn't do. I was certainly inspired in Japan in the 60's by my great uncles 150 year old bonsai and at 80 years old I am sure he didn't have the latest books telling him what to do.

There is nothing wrong with styling a bonsai to be like a particular tree you have seen in nature since this is what bonsai is attempting to do in the first place. I have had several bonsai looking like the trees I grew up around and they certainly did not obey all the rules.

tozankyaku wrote:I can see where you are going on this one and I am sure it will inspire you as it grows. I think it is a little busy still and sometime it is good to just let it grow if you are not 100% sure where you want it to be. The beauty of bonsai is it is a living art and no matter what you decide today it may not go exactly to your plan tomorrow.

Sometime breaking the rules of bonsai will make very extraordinary plants. If you look at a lot of prime specimens made by  the masters you will see rules are often broken in one way or another. The so called rules are only guides we try to go by I don't think my relatives a hundred or more years ago had books telling them what they could or couldn't do.  I was certainly inspired in Japan in the 60's by my great uncles 150 year old bonsai and at 80 years old I am sure he didn't have the latest books telling him what to do.

There is nothing wrong with styling a bonsai to be like a particular tree you have seen in nature since this is what bonsai is attempting to do in the first place. I have had several bonsai looking like the trees I grew up around and they certainly did not obey all the rules.

Thanks for your input Tozankyaku, could you share some of your trees that you like but don't agree with the "rules"? I'd be happy to see them : )

hey Tom - I tend to agree with Vance & Frary (also AAC members ), in that some removal will be needed...
And I say that based on the inspirations for this tree you provided...

I think your wild, alpinic vision would still need some direction and clarity, even with leader competition
(and as an aside, I dont believe larch are ever exposed to that sort of harsh Alpine environment , preferring a "quieter" existence at lower altitudes)

European larch L.decidua is a beast of mountain origin. You can find them in Alps and Carpathians (up to 2300 m asl ). Its occurence in Czech lowlands is mainly based on its artificial introduction in 19th century. It is quite sensitive to water shortage.

Thomas, I like the concept behind this tree and agree that it can sometimes be good to break the rules but as others have suggested I find the image a little confusing. There is a lot going on there and some elements seem to be in conflict with other elements.

In particular I find that the strong cascading branch and the dead wood that mirrors it are grabbing most of my attention. That could be good if all the other branches/sub trunks were complimenting the general movement to the right suggested by these features and the angle of the trunk but they're not.

I think that the weaker, thinner branches/sub trunks on the left are a problem. They don't add anything much to the tree but they do detract from what is good.

I'd remove them!

But then what do I know ehh?

Cheers

Richard

@Kevin @Richard Thanks for the feedback. I will definitely be removing some of the branches that are long and moving down and away from what I'm trying to do. My main goal was to make sure the tree survived this season and to establish itself in the pot but also some experimentation. : )

@Kevin, exactly what @Vlad said. Larix D. is in many cases, the last "big" tree you'll find in the Alpine regions here in Europe. Mugo is almost always last but they're more of a shrub. It's great that they are there because they create really good lines on the upper part of mountains during the snow season whereas spruce grow way too close together and usually you can't get between them like firs in the Pacific Northwest back home.

Cheers guys!

@Thomas Despite the fact its home is in mountains or better thats why it loves water. Due to the changes of weather patterns it suffers from reduced water resources - at least around the place I live. The water is even more important for potted l. decidua.

Yes Vlad, I think they are definitely water lovers. In fact, maybe because it's still warm in Brno, all of my larches are still green and drinking like mad! I've never had green larches in November. What a peculiar growing year.

i will be damned...
I would have though their water requirements would preclude them from thriving in the extremes found near the tree line...

Here (where I live) they grow low, wet and sheltered

kevin stoeveken wrote:i will be damned...
I would have though their water requirements would preclude them from thriving in the extremes found near the tree line...

Here (where I live) they grow low, wet and sheltered

Luckily for all the skiers and snowborders generally there is more precipitations in mountains...

Years since I last posted. Thought it be fun to update since I'm here



this is the direction I'm going. I feel it should make more sense now