Czech Yamadori

 Collected in 2015 in the Central Bohemia.      Height : 70 cm;        Pot: Martin Ašenbrenner Challenges to tackle: This branch has been pulled down by about 7 cm.  There is a cut at the base and another one in the middle.     Will see if  I can go any further in the bend.  If so I would need to reconsider the presence of the first branch on the left.  It looks a bit redundant even now and with better inclination of the problematic branch it will be even more so. The other one is a real brain teaser: massive outstanding root.   There was a stone between the trunk and the root that has been removed in the course of time.  And now what?   Get a new stone there?  Remove the root?   Try to pull them down under the soil surface?  And what about the reverse taper? Well, we will see.  I hope to start fixing this challenge next year. And anothe...

   This little yew has been collected from a garden colony  in 2017.   It was clear that there is reasonable potential for a small cascade.   With a bonus  challenge presented by a straight trunk and one of the root.     In early spring 2019 I have managed to bend the trunk.  The yew has struggled a bit but being a tough guy it managed to make it.    9th March 2021    Earlier this morning I have taken the tree into the shop together with few stones collected in past few years with ROR in mind. And this is the result.   It would be much easier to have 4 hands rather than just two  but somehow I have managed to fix it.   The fit is not 100% but taking into account the size of the tree and the stiffness of the wood of yew - I can live with it.     As a next step I will put around the stone a plastic mesh to create a kind of container that should work as a incubator for th...

 Just looking at this mahaleb last autumn I realised  that all my previous attempts to change the angle of the trunk in its last third were just a mere tickling.   I was thinking to fix it  immediately but giving it a second thought I decided to postpone the activity till the time the tree enters the post pormancy period = the level of hormones inhibiting the activity of the tree is low but the tree is not starting its activity ( I mean visible activity  such as the growht of the buds ) because it is kept low till the time of longer days and warmer temps.   Autumn and winter are in my experience the most suitable periods for heavy bends  but the most problematic one at the same time.  Heavy bends mean a tissue damage that could suffer even more because of the winter frost.  So you should keep such trees in the non frost area. Not below freezing point and not above 5-6°C as this is about the right range to keep the trees in dormancy....