Czech Yamadori

I am moving more and more from Homo sociologicus  to Homo collecticus. Yamadori  to start with. But in recent months I have enlarged the radius of my objects of interests to pieces of deadwood and stones.   Sometimes quite heavy load for my back to carry. Addiction of any sort is dangerous... Having a lot of nice rocks it has not taken too much time to get to the point where I have started thinking about connecting the rocks with the wood.  Live wood in this case. Root Over Rock.  Or ROR  if you like. As it is with any other new project you need A QUICK WIN.   Something that gives you confidence and boosts your determination to scramble up on a higher level.  A Berberis thunbergii atropurpurea looks OK for this purpose. Autumn 2017. How we did get there.... Shopping list Spring 2017:     Seedling with a reasonable lengthy roots,  a piece of rock, sphagnum moss, plastic tape and shade cloth. ...

In the early 90' we have bought some boxwood  to plant a hedge in our front garden.   Some of the surplus shrubs have been planted in the backyard in case they will be needed later on.   At the time I have started with bonsai I have been searching the yard for any possible candidate and one or the boxwood has attracted my attention. Reversed taper and  problematic straight branches were  not a problem for my heart under fire and eager hands... Clearly,  the brain had nothing to say at that time. 2013 The reversed taper is not a big problem now.  The branch with accute angle attracts too much attention 2015 A lot of space for birds to fly through the crown... Nevertheless the foliage has covered the problematic branch. Getting the shape. 2017 I guess we are +/- there.  It needs a bit of pruning to fine tune the pads,  but this will wait till the spring. Height: 45 cm

So, back to the yew and the bending of the remains of the original trunk.   In summary,  I have tested two methods of bending thick branches_dead wood.   1.  Method cut and close  2.  Hot water to soften the wood to make it less resistant to bending (see the previous article for details ) After the bending and bit of carving Top jin_before the bending After. Detail As a hobby joiner I have always thought about bending thick branches using heat as this is very old technique used in joinery for centuries.   Well, I should rather say using hot steam than just heat.   In practice, I have simplified the thing even further and instead of using the hot steam I have used a boiling water.  After this treatment I felt that the wood is "softer" and I was able to bend it.   Definitely much less than I have hoped, though.    I think that the hot steam would work much better neve...

Forget about YAMADORI when it comes to yews. There are not many yews in the wildness here in Czechia.   And to protect the remaining ones they have the status of highly protected trees by law.  So forget to collect it from the woodland.   The only  way is to collect from garden center/nursery or from your neighbor's garden once they are on a holiday... My biggest yew is located in the front garden - I started to build a niwaki tree a few years ago and by now it starts to look presentable.  The other two are in the mid-sized category with the target height around 50-70 cm.  We will see. The smaller one of this two has made a quite nice progress this year.  So I thought it would be  the right time to start some fine tuning to improve the overall appearance of the tree before the next season. Spring 2017 Summer 2017 It is a shame that I do not recall what type of fertilizer I have used on this tree.  From next to n...

I do admire people that could pinpoint  the best feature/s on their trees  and "build" the trees around it.  It is by far not that easy for me.   It may come on some trees but on some others ... It is a pain really.  It is exactly this sort of pain on this little Mahaleb.   I have written quite a lot about this pain in one of the earlier article (  here  ) so no need to remind myself of this pain in this new one... 2016 2017 After quite a long time of staring on the photographs of this tree I could not think of anything better than just to add side roots to the main one that crosses the rock.  I have used the same technique  as I do on other trees - removing few bits of the bark, apply rooting hormone ( I do not think it is necessary as this is a root anyway full of respective hormones ), covering the whole thing by sphagnum moss and keeping it wet.  The last point - keeping it wet - proved to be th...

2013 2015 14.11.2017  Exactly 4 years of growth since the first image. 5° tip to the right I am about to make a light pruning later this week.  Just the terminal buds and a smaller section of the twigs.  No wiring.  I leave that for a spring just before the new growth starts to think about lignification.  Then I will do some pruning and wiring.  Later in the  summer after the second flush I will consider a defoliation to get the third flush. Well, just  laud thinking.  It is the tree who is in charge... Then I hope we will get closer to the new pot.  Masculine and a bit lighter then the current one.

Autumn is the greatest period for all the deciduous bonsai folks.   Great fall colors, much less or even no manual watering as the nature is taking care of  it..  Love it. Winter is no worse than the Autumn.   After a good number of months you can see the fruits of your labor ( potting, wiring and pruning/pinching, watering, fertilising, pests fighting, excuses making ... ) in the past growth season.  Yes,  the branch structure.   The best what you can do is to make a good number of pictures of your trees taken from all sides.  A good camera is a merciless critic showing the things you may overlook with your naked eyes.    Spring is the best time for a Yamadori hunter though.    I have spent a number of days in the last year on my knees, pushing my way through the undergrowth. Hoovering ticks from the grass and shrubs ( If I am "lucky" I can have even 5 or more in a single day).  All that ef...