Malus prebonsai meets Dremel

March, 13th, 2016
My Malus prebonsai meets my Dremel for the second time. First carving was done about 3years ago.
Today I extended the dead wood areas a bit, cleaned up the old carving, and started refining. All this took about 3 hours. I noticed afterwards that some 'forgotten' spots still need a little extra refining, maybe another 1/2hour work. I am still hesitating as to treating the dead wood this spring, or wait another year for some natural weathering first, perhaps the latter. This tree is still a prebonsai, several years building up ahead.

Height is about 30cm.

The last two pictures were taken sept 2015, to show how the dead wood was before today.

Silver Birch roots

Tree repotted very recently, still in oversized pot.
2016 will be the 8th year since it was born as seedling in 2008. Quite spectacular.
Just a 'fait divers', with a picture of the roots with a carved hollow, and a picture of the trunk base.
The tree is between 30 and 40cm high right now. It has a few years to go to build a better ramification. Next year maybe it will get a proper bonsaipot.

A little Dremel-carving on Rowan #2

Spent an hour with my little Rowan #2. I collected this one only in early april 2015, so it has spent 1 growing season in a big training pot.

It had some rotten dead wood and some boring and awkward areas that I needed to give some attention. So today was the day for that. Good half an hour carving with my Dremel did the job, at least for now. Several carved areas are interconnected with hollows. The pictures do not really show depth and dimensions. I am thinking about creating a hollow at the base of the trunk, carve upwards into the trunk and connect with the dead wood areas higher up. Maybe for this summer or next year. For now I'm hoping for a spring with lots of new growth. I intend to create an oval or round canopy.

Height is about 20cm at the moment.
Last picture is 'before', taken somewhere fall 2015.

Common (Black) Alders #2 and #3 lifted from the ground

Today I lifted 2 more Black Alders (Alnus Glutinosa) from the ground. I started them from 2yo plants that were grown as forestry material, and put them in my garden in 2010/2011.

I dug them out, cleaned out the ground from between the roots and put them both in water basins for a good few hours.

The first one was transplanted in a pond basket, after thorough rootpruning.
The other one allready had roots that could suit a bonsaipot better, so after some work it got transplanted in my only 'big' bonsaipot I had left on the shelf. This tree needs its top to be pulled more up straight obviously. And, a lot of branches needed on both of them.
Fingers crossed for the Spring to come.

raw material of Common/Black Alder in pond basket

Common/Black Alder (alnus glutinosa).

Started in 2010 from a 2 year old plant that was grown for forestry material.
It is now just a 'trunk' (about 60-70cm), put in a pond basket to further develop this raw material. I am curious if the lower most branch will survive its brutal attack from a garden pole that fell due to very windy weather 2 weeks ago. We'll see, I have 2 more common Alders waiting in the ground for their first trainingpot.

European Hornbeam (carpinus betulus): raw material repotted

European Hornbeam (carpinus betulus)

Since a few years reduced from a +/- 18yo hedge into raw material. Building it back up, from roots to canopy. Trunk will never be really 'special' as to tapering. Obviously a lot of carving still to do in the future, especially get some more taper in the upper 1/3 of the trunk. I repotted it after 2 years, into the same plastic container which I chopped a good few centimeters. Potting mixture: cocopeat, vermiculite, zeolite, lava, all in about equal parts.

Mini Ash repotted in pond/plant basket

Tiny common European Ash tree, repotted in a pond basket.
Height is about 25cm from base to top, and the little trunk is about 5cm t the base. The 'nebari' is not terrible, but the 'nice' roots are not spread perfectly, mainly on one side and the back. It lacks 1 good major root on the other side, but hey...I don't hate it for that. And, for now, all is still hidden :)

The small plastic trainingpot is was in for 2 seasons was literally packed with roots, obviously 3 or 4 thicker main roots and in between were masses of fine feeder roots. It was in 80% zeolite granulate with 20% cocopeat.

Last year it grew well, but I want to give it a little more pot-space for another 1 or 2 years. Good strong growth and activating those extra buds that appeared last year. After that, I hope I can put it in its first 'real' bonsaipot and start working on ramification.

'sorry' for the bad picture.