Winged elm--Ulmus alata: Suggestions

As I indicated in the hackberry post, this tree was also dug from my garden last Spring and allowed to grow unrestrained in its box. I have greater problems, I think, with the trunk on this elm: it has little taper, inverse taper, a crevice in the truck resulting from its rotting out from a chop (the rot has been cleaned out with a dremmel, and is awaiting wood-hardener treatment). From what appears to me to be the best viewing angle (about 20 deg counter-clockwise from the second picture) that minimizes the inverse taper and shows the crevice to best effect, the apex and upper third of the trunck leans away from the viewer. The nebari (buried at the moment) is not great, but the better part is on the "front" side; it is minimal at the back. Anywhere to go with this?

Oliver

I have a small winged elm but the branches are different

I would expand and feature the big shari that can be seen in the 1st and 2nd pictures with a front between them. That gives some movement to the left, and if you tilt it a bit to the right you can grow out the branch that will be on the bulge about 1/2 way of the big chunk of trunk and pull the leader back to the right a bit to build the apex. Will probably require a bit of carving at the top of the shari, but that can wait a couple of years until the rest starts to catch up.

Reg-I, the wings do tend to vary some from tree to tree, but mine had wings like that when it was in the ground. The new growth is not stout enough to have developed the corkyness yet.

Marty, I was thinking something like that. A front between pics 1 and 2 shows the shari to best effect, and the inverse taper is minimized as well. However, the top third of the tree does angle away from the viewer more as we rotate between views 1 and 2. We'll see...

Thanks!
Oliver

If all else fails, you can always air layer just below the reverse taper and end up with 2 trees

oliver, I think the reverse taper is fine. In nature, ton of old giant oaks etc have reverse taper when their first set of branches exit the trunk. I like your tree a lot.

How deep is the dead wood at the base? If it is deep, (if not, you can carve it and) try spreading the trunk from the inside and have a wider looking base.

yeah, harry harrington on bonsai 4me website did exactly that with a big hawthorne

Poink88 wrote:How deep is the dead wood at the base? If it is deep, (if not, you can carve it and) try spreading the trunk from the inside and have a wider looking base.

That's a thought. The crevice is pretty deep. I will consider it at the next repotting.
Thanks!
Oliver

Oliver Muscio wrote:

Poink88 wrote:How deep is the dead wood at the base? If it is deep, (if not, you can carve it and) try spreading the trunk from the inside and have a wider looking base.

That's a thought. The crevice is pretty deep. I will consider it at the next repotting.
Thanks!
Oliver

If you plan on doing it...start now or ASAP. I would put a spreader clamp (of some sort, threaded if you can get one or make one) now and start jacking it open slowly. Hopefully, it will be ready by next re-potting

Billy, here you go:

Oliver