Home Depot Tsuga c.

I really enjoy working with this species even if I don’t have it figured out quite yet. It is rare that I get this excited about big box store material, but I had to have it when I saw the trunk. I figured the branches would fall into place. First photo was this winter and second when I bought it last March. Despite the reduction over the last year, I am pretty confident about hustling it into an Anderson flat this spring and seeing what is hiding in the nursery pot. I figure that if the one I collected from the wild survived me digging it out of the ground and sawing through the majority of roots, this one might not even sulk a season.

If the roots are awful the tree is never going to be good bonsai. So I agree with your decision to have a long hard look at the roots and maybe give them a preparatory trim and a repot.

But maybe think about doing it over 2 - 3 seasons if you do like what you see? Don't rush it just because you can. The roots that you can cut back now but instead leave intact will help deliver good top growth.

And the factis the top of the tree will need some serious work. The foliage is way too far from the trunk, and the branches are all over the place. You will be doing some serious trimming and refining. You will need plenty of roots for that exercise.

BTW, I have never believed we need to "balance" the amount of roots trimmed with the amount of leaves trimmed.

If you can leave it then leave it. The tree will sort itself out. Die back is natural if you leave a root-branch in place and the tree can do without it. The surlpus root-branch will just naturally die. Equally, if it needs it and you cut it off you are not helping...

Good points Brendan; and I’ll take them under consideration. I guess what i’ll do is cut down the pot and bring down the surface soil until I start to see the surface roots. This will give me an idea of how much will need to come off the bottom to get it to fit in the flat. It will also give me an idea of what angle I’ll want to have it pottted at. Then I can saw off the bottom of the root mass at an angle to get it sitting at just the right angle. I’ve heard some say sawing is risky, but I think it will set me in the direction of shallower, wider roots, with minimal disturbance to core of the roots. Then, depending on what I find (fingers crossed for no clay core). I can do a half bare root, or be more or less aggressive. I think getting some aggregate pumice, DME and lava, with a generous portion of spaghnum, around the roots will get growth pumping in no time.

Remember that the roots at the top might not be the best ones, or the ones you want to keep. You may want to wait till you remove it entirely from the pot to see all the roots, and then decide. There could possibly be a good nebari zone below the highest roots, in a nursery pot like this.

It looks like the trunk has great movement and good taper.

I’ll keep that in mind too. Of course even the best laid plans have a habit of going out the window for me once I find myself in the mess of what I am working with.  That reminds me of my other Tsuga that at collection I could have swore there was a spoked wagon wheel of roots underneath the duft that I preserved in the hopes of saving some fine feeders. The roots took off so strongly, that after repotting a few years ago,  I’m still not sure what is buried under there.

BrendanR wrote:... ...BTW, I have never believed we need to "balance" the amount of roots trimmed with the amount of leaves trimmed.  
If you can leave it then leave it.  The tree will sort itself out.  Die back is natural if you leave a root-branch in place and the tree can do without it.  The surlpus root-branch will just naturally die.   Equally, if it needs it and you cut it off you are not helping...

This is exactly what I have come to believe. The tree "knows" what it can support. It will feed what it has the ability to feed and the rest will die.

I went ahead and repotted, likely after the last frost in my area. I extended my mix of scoria, pumice and akadama with some calcined DME, and also amended with some dried vermi-compost and spaghnum. Top dressed with spaghnum and then a layer of aggregate from the shores of Lake Erie. It is heavy so it will keep the spaghnum from blowing away, hopefully keep the birds off and it is dark when wet but dries a very light color, which I think will be good for helping regulate temperature. Mainly I thought the Erie aggregate looked nice.
There was a tag wrapping the  at least a portion of the roots below the soil line; I think I got it all out of there. I went pretty hard on the roots, but I bet it will be full steam ahead by next year. Once it shows signs of vigor, I can reduce and remove branches to bring the growth further in. Maybe a couple sacrifice branches to emphasize the taper further.

BrendanR wrote:If the roots are awful the tree is never going to be good bonsai.  So I agree with your decision to have a long hard look at the roots and maybe give them a preparatory trim and a repot.  

But maybe think about doing it over 2 - 3 seasons if you do like what you see?  Don't rush it just because you can.  The roots that you can cut back now but instead leave intact will help deliver good top growth.

And the factis the top of the tree will need some serious work.  The foliage is way too far from the trunk, and the branches are all over the place.  You will be doing some serious trimming and refining.  You will need plenty of roots for that exercise.

BTW, I have never believed we need to "balance" the amount of roots trimmed with the amount of leaves trimmed.  

If you can leave it then leave it.  The tree will sort itself out.  Die back is natural if you leave a root-branch in place and the tree can do without it.  The surlpus root-branch will just naturally die.   Equally, if it needs it and you cut it off you are not helping...

You seem to be your own worst enemy. You have come up with five erroneous opinions and your are selling them as truth.

[quote="Vance Wood"]

BrendanR wrote:
You seem to be your own worst enemy.  You have come up with five erroneous opinions and your are selling them as truth.

Brendan has demonstrated good results with Tsuga c., including decent backbudding on older leaves, so I do respect his opinions, as I respect your advice and experience Vance. Do you have any specific advice counter to what he gave me?

I did go a little harder on the roots than he suggested as my experience with the species indicates it can handle it. But I guess we’ll just see how well it recovers. I didn’t balance out the top with the root work that was done, because I already reduced the top significantly in the last year. There is no danger of anything being shaded out (yet).

Not out of the woods; it may have never been in the woods as nursery stock, but I’m taking the new growth as a good sign. It is way behind my other hemlock which has many buds at a little over an inch long by now. I don’t know that the two will synch up in future springs, but no doubt the repotting set this one back a ways.

Root pruning in spring reduces the amount of available photosynthates stored over winter, Those photosynthates would have powered leaf growth. They were lost to the tree and hence it is a bit slow. It is now busy making roots as well as leaves. The good news is that the next spring growth will probably be a lot stronger.

The tree will now apply a process of natural selection, favouring stronger branches at the expense of weaker branches. If you watch it over the first half of this growing season you will see where the tree is focusing its energy, and where not. That will give you a good idea where you should focus your effort. Weaker branches are unlikely to become strong branches. There is no point in deliberately weakening strong branches.

So when you start to look for a design in this tree work towards its strengths. As soon as you are sure you can start to remove weaker growth. That tree will send the energy that was going into that weak growth elsewhere, usually for a net gain.

Don't try to force the design on the tree. That usually ends in tears, as I have learned many times over. Rather let the tree show itself to you.

Knowing what attributes will make it potentially a good bonsai, and reading the signs, you will soon find a design that pleases you and the tree.

I give advice where I either have personal experience, or where I have found solid science behind the advice. I really highly recommend the book "501 Principles of good bonsai horticulture". Have a look at page 134 about "balancing" and why you don't do it.

This one is more and more encouraging as Spring is progressing. You can see it’s cousin is much further along, but in terms of bud count, “depot” may be stronger. I wasn’t planning on balancing growth, other than removing the two thickest branches that have finer parallel counter parts, but it is a good thing I have a year to think on it as they might be part of a Charles Atlas, strong arm design. The only weak areas appear to be single bud, back-buds on the lower branches. I’ll let those gather strength, but I won’t reduce the lower branches for quite a while as i’ll let them grow unrestricted to develop taper and there is no risk of them shading other growth.
I’ll check out the book you recommended.

Here's mine last week.  The first pic is from before I nipped out any growth above the last pair of new buds allover the tree - second pic is after the nipping and a week later.



20190424_074449 by BrendanR2012, on Flickr



20190514_163119 by BrendanR2012, on Flickr

Thanks for posting @BrendanR . Is this your trim where you select for bifucation? Are you trimming back to the pair of buds closest to the trunk? Or closest to the established branch?

I’m debating pinching my more established one this year, by bringing all the new growth back by about half, except for any back buds that I would like to strengthen. I had the same debate last year, with the other option being to let the growth run and cut back during winter. Last year I let it run, but the wires started to cut in so I trimmed when I removed the biting wire in late summer, which I think was not good timing. The health has been fine, but not as much back-budding as hoped.

that book referenced is great, but somewhat confusingly written
once you sort that out, it is rock solid...

MrFancyPlants wrote:Thanks for posting @BrendanR . Is this your trim where you select for bifucation? Are you trimming back to the pair of buds closest to the trunk? Or closest to the established branch?... ...

I would also like to read a definition/description, if I may ask.
English is not mother language for me, so I am a little confused with the use of the word "above"

BrendanR wrote:... ...before I nipped out any growth above the last pair of new buds allover the tree - second pic is after the nipping and a week later... ...

Thank you in advance.

Sorry for the confusion. Here's what I have been doing to promote ramification:

Starting from the branch tip I look to see how many new buds have emerged along the length of the branch back towards the trunk. I trim it back to the pair closest to the trunk, removing all the growth from that pair to the tip.

Weak branches with weak buds might not be cut at all. Multiple new buds close together might not be trimmed, as they will extend and that is successful ramification already. So mostly I look for a branch with say 3 - 5 buds and trim back.

I turn the tree a quarter turn after every cut. I keep all the offcuts in a pile. That way I am aware of how much I remove, as I never want to remove more than about 20 - 30% of the buds all at once. I may go back a week later and do a few more, slowly as the tree wakes up and spring extends into summer.

I am also about to apply the first feed of the year. I never feed before I have done the first round of trimming.

Thank you so very much for the detailed answer.

BrendanR wrote:Sorry for the confusion.  
No need to apologize. My inadequate knowledge is the problem    
I never feed before I have done the first round of trimming.
Interesting. May I ask for your way of thinking/rationale if you don't mind.

I am not an expert on feeding trees.

I feed after the leaves are out and have pretty much started to harden off. This is because I want the tree to use only the stored energy from the roots to put out new growth, and for the growth to be as controlled as possible.

If I fed it as soon as the buds unfurled there is a good chance that the growth would be improved and enhanced. Which is bad if you are trying to increase ramification and shorten the internodes.

On trees I am thickening up and growing fast I put chicken manure pellets out when the buds open.

I don’t hold back on the food for my hemlock. When I was attending the Northern Virginia Bonsai Society meetings, one of the members turned me on to the agriform fertilizer tablets, saying that black pine in particular seemed to love the stuff, something along the lines of “mutants in a chemical dump.” I wouldn’t go that high N for a maple or elm, but for the Tsuga, as long as they are not allowed to dry out, I cycle through multiple tabs at a time. I also use liquid MSU style fert (thanks Leo) on them and the broad lead trees, whenever I get the chance, sometimes daily.
The leaves on my collected Tsuga are definitely larger than they were in the wild, but I figure the vigor will just encourage more budding.
I do have some organic components in my well draining mix (pumice, DME, scoria, akadama, cali-dama) as well, I liberally sprinkle in long grain spaghnum when I repot. And I lightly sprinkle in some well aged and dried vermi-compost. We were between houses and I left a bag of the compost in the car for a year so it is quite dry. I sift out the dust.
I’ve heard the high N and organics can cause problems, but it’s worked out well for me so far. Especially for the freshly repotted trees. They also usually respond with another burst of growth when I weed and freshen the top layer of substrate (I forget what that operation is called) in mid to late summer..
It is also debatable if the high N is good for ramification for Tsuga, it might very well not be, but since mine are in development, I am going to stick with it for a while.

BrendanR wrote:I am not an expert ... ... ... I put chicken manure pellets out when the buds open.  

Thank you very much for presenting your thoughts.
These are similar to the reasoning I had in mind.
Most of my trees are in the development state and at the moment I am not concerned about internodes and size of leaves. I'm building trunks and branches

Some more progress on the big box Tsuga. I’m debating removing the long straight branches, but I’m a little worried it will become a bit cookie cutter if I do. There is some growth close to the trunk that could replace the upper right branch marked in blue. Not so much on the left. Photos: after, cut blue?,and before.

Another year for the big box tree. I enjoy where this is going though I may try to take to a workshop for some branch selection. I do wonder if it is a weeping variety as the top won’t take off despite the general vigor. I brought in some branches early winter, and it has been responding well to the clip and grow.

I’m planning on taking to a workshop this fall, but I did some “opening up” of the tree in preparation. I figured it will be easier to make those decisions if you can actually see the trunk. There are a couple branches that I could bring in a bit more but that I am leaving long for health, for now. I’m the future tree, I do see some cascading branches or foliage, but I imagine more than a few of the bottom branches will have to go…