This Yew Tree has been in development for many years, this was the point that I needed to bring the foliage closer to the trunk. It was a nail biting experience, but the tree survived and thrived. I will be posting more about this tree later in March.
The Yew tree had been stripped and the wood dry for over two years, I was surprised how hard it was to actually ‘burn’ the wood and smooth out the rough breaks etc. I protected the foliage with a wet towel and continually wet it during the process. Using a Chefs blow torch, then whilst it is hot I use a brass wire brush to remove the burnt wood, I use sandblasting on BIGGER projects… prepping the tree is laborious when blasting.
The colour will improve over the years… for now it has had only one coat of Lime sulphur.
Today I filmed this tree because this year will see a dramatic increase in foliage, refinement of the image and maturity of the bonsai. The tree had its first styling last year when the main branches were put in place.
Creating the right structure from an early stage means that you can avoid having to correct mistakes and loose years of work later. The image is OK now but it is still a very young ‘bonsai’ but not a young tree. With good horticultural technique, timely application of bonsai ‘know how’ and a good few HOT summers this bonsai should be ready for exhibition in 2016.
The story of collecting this tree from the mountain can be seen here.
When purchasing raw material Yamadori… that is trees that have been collected and are in the first container that they were established, many folk are concerned that the transition to a smaller container would be too traumatic an undertaking.
Timing, health and understanding the resilience of the species is essential when doing this work.
The example shown here is a yew tree that I am developing for David Carvalho from Portugal, the tree has been in its first container for three years and is ready to be moved to a much smaller ‘bonsai pot’ size container.
Checking the roots we see that it pot is full and there is Mycorrhiza present, good evidence of a healthy root system. The establishing planting medium is still very open and there are no ‘black’ roots to be seen.
On closer inspection a thick root needs to be shortened to enable the tree to fit into a smaller pot. The abundance of new fleshy root that is present closer to the tree enables me to make a big cut, the top of the root will need to be ‘carved’ to blend in the nebari, this will compliment the deadwood that will feature as part of the overall design.
The root ball is reduced with the fine roots being cut with very sharp sterilised scissors, the tree is tied into the container with wire and filled with my special soil mixture and left to grow for another season before any further work is done.
The whole of Europe is in the grip of a mini ice age, yet here in the UK we seem to have missed the worst of the weather. The coldest my garden has got is -3c during the day and a night -7c. yesterday we had the strange phenomena of ‘freezing rain’.
The trees that I have left out are totally covered in a thin layer of ice. The Pines, Yews, Larches and Hawthorns that I collect have endured far worse conditions when they were exposed to severe desiccating winds during very cold winters in the mountains so I am not concerned as to their wellbeing in my sheltered garden.
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