creating a nice thick trunk

emptyboxes · Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 9:44 pm Post subject: creating a nice thick trunk

what are the best ways to get really good trunk thickness?

yamadorinige · Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 10:01 pm Post subject: Re: creating a nice thick trunk

The best way to gain trunk girth is to plant your tree in the ground and not prune the apex for at least 3 years. The next best thing if you don't have space is to plant in a large pot or grow box so that root growth is not impeded.

imholte · Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:40 am Post subject: Re: creating a nice thick trunk

There are various ways to increase the size of the trunk.

Planting in the ground like nige said works well, but the tree needs to be cut back quite often or the trunk will not develop any taper. I am a fan of not pruning the tree all growing season and then chopping back in the spring. Each following spring repeat the chop just a ways above the previous years chop. This method produces very good movement and proper taper. For more massive trunks keep the distance between chops short, and vice versa for less massive trunks.

One method that works great for trees in pots is the use of sacrificial branches. Letting certain branches grow freely for a year or two will significantly increase the trunk at/below the branch.

Surrey John · Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 10:34 am Post subject: Re: creating a nice thick trunk

Isn't it true, on the whole, that any bonsai with an impressively thick and tapered trunk will either have been air-layered off something else or, even more likely, will have been grown down, not grown up? The point being, that trunk taper is really an illusion in many bonsai used to create an impression of age and stability - you never (or hardly ever) see in nature a maple with a tapered trunk like the one Dick recently posted or, indeed, like "My Birthday Prezzie" in "show us Yours" and there have been lots of other examples of trunks like these. It is, on the whole, the chop-back-and-grow-on technique repeated season by season which makes the pronounced taper, surely? Something I have never done, by the way. SJ.

imholte · Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:20 pm Post subject: Re: creating a nice thick trunk

I think most of the trees that you see that have massive trunks have been grown that way, but sacrificial branches do help quite a bit and tend not to leave quite a scar as chopping back does.

Surrey John · Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 6:52 pm Post subject: Re: creating a nice thick trunk

I've never tried with sacrificial branches, Ed, so my actual experience on this is negative, but I wonder what happens when after the trunk has thickened you take the decision to lose the sacrificial branch? Doesn't it scar then? One way or another, it seems to me, there must be the risk of major scarring. SJ.

imholte · Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 12:47 am Post subject: Re: creating a nice thick trunk

Yes there would be scars. Some people utilize whole branches as the sac branch and remove it in its entireity. Some just remove some of the branch. But if you have 10 sacrificial branches on a tree the scarring of each one would be alot less then haveing one big scar at the top of the tree. Usually sacraficial branches are used to fatten up just a particular section of the tree, or even used to heal a scar.

mo's bonsai · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 4:14 am Post subject: creating a nice thick trunk

Trunk thickening & taper as John put it is somewhat an illusion. I think it's a process of a specific bonsai technique which takes months to accomplish therefore a worthy display of trunk thickening and tapering considering the time spent developing it. I like the idea of letting it grow all season and chopping in the spring but would chopping down in the spring apply to most species or is there a do not chop list such as Stokes dwarf Youpon to be more precise.

Mo

kenuk · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:48 am Post subject: Re: creating a nice thick trunk

Has anybody tried splitting the trunk from the bottom, and then filling the split with another piece of wood(same sort if possible). Then letting it heal over.

ken

Stymie · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 12:50 pm Post subject: Re: creating a nice thick trunk

That's clever thinking Ken. I've never tried that, even though I've spliced up to three thin trees on to a dead core. I can visualise some inverse taper resulting from that technique because the split would not go all the way down to soil level and beyond. Did you read about it or think it up yourself?

imholte · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 1:26 pm Post subject: Re: creating a nice thick trunk

kenuk · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 2:57 pm Post subject: Re: creating a nice thick trunk

No Don i did not think about it myself, i read it somewhere. But if i have got it right you do start from underneath the roots, put wire round the trunk where you want the split to stop. Then open the split up, then fill the gaps with wedge shaped pieces of wood just below bark.

ken

Stymie · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 3:48 pm Post subject: Re: creating a nice thick trunk

Try to find where you saw it Ken and let us know. It's all grist to the mill. We learn more ervery day.

kenuk · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 5:57 pm Post subject: Re: creating a nice thick trunk

Don, It's in Bonsai4 me.com, Advanced Techniques , Trunk Splitting.

Has anybody had any experience with this technique

ken

yamadorinige · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 6:12 pm Post subject: Re: creating a nice thick trunk

I've seen that article before