Summer pruning

I recently had the chance to do some work on a couple of my trees.

A large Oak was de-foliated to encourage the refinement of the ramification. The bottom branch (started last year ) was not striped to allow it to grow strongly and put on some weight.





The second was a shohin Ash which was strongly leaf trimed and given it's first wiring to set the branches.

Peter,

I was thought that when you do de-foliation, you do the whle tree completle, to "wipe out its memory" of the old size. If you dont do that branch, please let us know witheen 6-8 weeks the results.
and the shohin looks great.
Ami

Love the trunks on these two.

Looking at the sillhouette, though, I wonder if you shouldn't go for a more rounded top and spreading canopy with these. Neither of these grow naturally with a pointy top in old age.

Oaks are one to be careful with complete defoliation. They are prone to aborting twigs and even whole branches if not in the peak of vigour. Sometimes a design decision overrides the need to defoliate totally. As Peter is doing in this case, thickening a branch will occur much faster if it is left to grow untrimmed. You may want to do this with a sacrifice branch, at the back, to thicken the new apex too.

I have never completely defoliated my Q robur, yet I got the leaves right down in size just by tip pruning regularly for several years. Once the shape you want has been established, the first two leaves are always smaller than later ones, so by cutting back to these and inducing bifuracation you get reduced leaf size, increased ramification and retain a tight profile.

Both have great potential but the Ash will only look good at this size for a few days until the new leaves grow too large again. I understand they will take repeated defoliation but haven't tried that on mine.

Man I love that oak .it looks so big.i want to try a oak but can,t find any thing like that. did you dig these two?? REALLY GOOD WORK..John

JimLewis wrote:Love the trunks on these two.

Looking at the sillhouette, though, I wonder if you shouldn't go for a more rounded top and spreading canopy with these. Neither of these grow naturally with a pointy top in old age.

Jim, both of these are still in development. I plan to extend the canopy of the oak but over some years so i have the refinement.
As for the ash, this one is just starting it new life.
As Kev says, the new leaves will soon outsize the trunk but i am growing this one for a winter image. The leaves do reduce a lot but i have not attempted continual leaf stripping.

moyogijohn wrote:i want to try an oak but can't find any thing like that. did you dig these two?? .John

The native English oak, Quercus robur, and the European ash, Fraxinus excelsior, are suitable for bonsai, but unfortunately, our native eastern oaks & ashes are not. Growers in the Southwest use the California live oaks for bonsai, but I have no idea how well they would survive in the East or where you would get one.
There are native American trees suitable for bonsai, but you will have to contact an experienced collector from your part of the country. Meanwhile, read Bonsai from the Wild, by Nick Lenz.
If you are lucky enough to find a relict population of American elm, they are quite suitable for bonsai and the leaves reduce. Bonsai don't seem to be attacked by Dutch elm disease because astute growers can keep the beetles away.
Iris

bonsaisr wrote: Bonsai don't seem to be attacked by Dutch elm disease because astute growers can keep the beetles away.
Iris

I think you will find that the beetles only attack trees over a certain height. So, Bonsai Elms are not affected.

O.K. so 6 weeks on from when i defoliated and the tree is looking good.
Leaf size is greatly reduced which will help bring more light into the tree to keep new buds alive.
You can also see how the branch which was left has also thrown out more shoots. This will help with thickening.