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Dawn Redwood Redux

Posted in Fusion Bonsai with tags , , on February 12, 2012 by Greg Wentzel

Winter has been canceled this year. Well, maybe not, but we have sure had more than our share of 60+ degree days in Jan. and Feb. Last Thursday it was 62 degrees and I needed to get out in the sun for a while so I decided to work on my Dawn Redwood fusion project. After I originally assembled this tree last year it became quite obvious that the upper trunk was much too thick and had lost it’s taper. Since trunk fusion had only been modest I decided to correct this problem while I still had an opportunity. First I removed 5 dead seedlings and one near dead seedling, and then I separated the fusions, which at this stage had not fully hardened off and were relatively easy to separate. Finally I detached the seedlings from the frame and cut the frame down to 6 inches above the base. This allowed me to collapse the trunk.

The only problem I encountered with reassembly was that the seedlings were no longer seedlings but actually 3-year-old trees. Several were now approaching ¾ of an inch in diameter and the twist ties I was using would not bind the trees securely. My solution was to use small brass flathead screws. Most of the screws are hidden from view because I attached the trees from the side and the adjacent tree covered the screw. A few trees needed to be attached from the top and are visible. I counter sank these and they should heal over quickly leaving no visible presence. The smaller trees were bound by doubling up the twist ties. Finally I added 11 more trees/seedlings of various sizes to fill the gaps. The root ball (not yet root bound) was very solid and I planted it in the ground with very little disturbance.

It is hard to see the trunk in this photo because the trees exiting from the trunk are parallel to the trunk, however, the apex of the trunk is much improved and the taper is much more dramatic. The plan at this stage is to maximize growth this year and next spring begin removing the excess trees to be flush with the trunk.

You might be able to see that we had our first big snow storm this year. Not enough to cover the ground, but the cold has returned with a high today of 32 degrees. Cabin fever is agonizing.

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Year end project update

Posted in Fusion Bonsai with tags , , , , on December 4, 2011 by Greg Wentzel

My uncle Pete is fond of saying, “ I don’t drink instant coffee and I don’t create instant bonsai”.

In this modern world where “instant gratification takes too long” a real time bonsai blog can be painfully slow to follow. With FusionBonsai.com I intend to show every step in my projects as they  happen and you will not see simple before and after photos without an explanation as to what problems were encountered in between. My first two fusion projects have had a few setbacks because there are no blueprints to follow for this technique, but I am learning quickly and future projects should proceed with fewer problems.

The Dawn Redwood fusion has showed very little fusion so far. The seedlings have not grown very much because I have kept them in a pot. I did not realize the impact that a very large pot would have on slowing growth. The 2 seedling test was kept in a pot and had very good fusion, but 37 seedlings in a pot created too much competition for space, water and nutrients to have much growth and therefore little fusion. A few seedlings have died off and will be replaced in the spring with extra seedlings that I kept in reserve.  I will then plant the tree(s) in the ground and hope to see much better results.

The Trident Maple fusion had problems from the very beginning (see Trident Maple Fusion article). About 25% of the seedlings died off completely or partially. There is some fusion but like the Dawn Redwood growth was slowed from being in a pot. I have 30 seedlings in reserve that will be used for repairs in the spring and I will also plant this tree(s) in the ground.

When I came back from my summer vacation this year I found that my upside down Black pine had died. I believe this was caused by transplanting it too late in the season. Pines are very sensitive to transplanting. The cascading Black pine is doing very good. I will start another upside down Black pine in the early spring.

I read an article about venture capitalist Johnaton Perrelli who was looking for start up companies to invest in. When he interviewed entrepreneurs seeking investors he would ask them about their failures. Perrelli said “Failure is good, because it means they’ll probably never make the same mistake again”.

I do not consider the first year of fusion to be a failure but it was less successful than I had anticipated. Bonsai requires a lot of patience.

I have a few new projects in mind for spring 2012. The project that I am really excited about is an Ogon fusion, a golden variety of Dawn Redwood. I have also planted several varieties of seed this fall for future projects.

I will continue to try different species and different twists to this fusion technique to learn and document as much information as possible.

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A Tale of Two Fusions

Posted in Acer Buergerianum, Dawn Redwood, Fusion Bonsai, Metasequoia Glyptostroboides, Trident Maple with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 10, 2011 by Greg Wentzel

I originally began this blog as a real time document of my attempts to fuse seedlings into large tapered trunk bonsai. This quickly morphed into a broader based tree blog and will probably continue to morph into what I don’t yet know. I would spend much more time studying and writing about trees, however I have to work to support my other hobbies, namely food and shelter.

In this post I will introduce two readers who have also experimented with trunk fusions (we are not alone). This is not meant to be a competition, but to highlight the similarities despite radical differences in construction.

Shane is from down under in Australia. 23 years ago Shane, without using a frame, tied Trident maple seedlings together around a rock using raffia (a biodegradable string). He had several seedlings die and having no replacement seedlings to fill the gaps just let the tree grow. It took quite a long time to close the gaps naturally but he now has a great tapered trunk to begin developing branches. The nebari (exposed roots) have a good start and can be further improved with root grafting. The scars on the trunk should heal by the time the branches are completed. This tree is 15 inches tall to the base of the leader, which should now be removed, and has a whopping 12-inch diameter at the base of the trunk.

Will is from Maryland, USA. He used Doug Phillips approach of attaching Trident maple seedlings to a heavy gauge copper wire frame using paper coated twist ties. Will also had several seedlings die off and also chose to let the gaps fill in naturally. In the first photo we can see how Will used Styrofoam peanuts to push the excess seedlings away from the trunk allowing them to grow and fuse with adjacent seedlings before their removal. In the second photo we can see the tree is beginning to loose it’s taper because the sacrifice branches have been allowed to grow too large, but look at that incredible nebari. Will’s tree is 4 years old.

Both Shane and Will have encountered the major flaw of the trunk fusion technique, seedling die off (I have also run into this problem with my Trident maple, although I have not had a die off problem with my Dawn redwood, more on my trees in a future blog). Both men purchased their seedlings and that could be part of the die off problem. I have found that growing your own seedlings greatly improves their survival rate. It also adds one year to the growth process.

Doug Phillips, Shane, Will and myself are a small but growing subset within the bonsai community. We are eager to experiment and try new techniques. I hope others will join us and some day in the near future we will be considered mainstream bonsai enthusiasts.

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