The Crenata Chronicles III

Continuing our work with the Japanese White barked Beech bonsai it is time to do some basic early winter prep work

As we want to see the structure of the tree, assess the ramification and do some work all the brown leaves are removed. Now we can see just how dirty the trunk has become over the Autumn. Dirt, fertiliser residues and green algae make it all look a mess

As we can see the tree is in serious need of a good clean - -  and at the top of the picture is a small side branch coming across the trunk . . .it should be cut off  but we'll se if it can be moved first.

Trunk cleaning is down to some water and vinegar and some plastic bristled brushes. Start at the top, work down and then wash the whole tree with hard spray from a hosepipe.

All scrubbed, now the branch.........

The old stub is removed, hollowed and the edges cleaned up with a sharp knife

Two 3.0 mm copper wires are placed in the curve, temporarily held with wire while they are wrapped with raffia and plastic tape. This is a backbone for the branch we hope to move and being coper wire it will actually hold the bend in place

Twin copper 2mm wires are put on for added protection to the outside of the bendand the branch that was crossing the trunk now goes the right way ! 

All exposed bits of the cut are sealed and I quickly worked up the tree adding a few guy wires and wiring a few branches that were starting to creep up at the tips

Finished tree - repotting planned for spring, I want to boost the vigor as the next stage is to massively increase the number of shoots and to thicken some new branches that are just thin new shoots coming out of the trunk. This tree has a stunning nebari - it would have been airlayered in japan over 30 years ago to be this mature.

Tree wired in copper - its all i use on every tree - Because we produce all our own annealed wire fresh in small batches it is lovely and soft to put on, and because we do it in half kilo rolls you dont get stuck with old rolls of hard wire - (it stiffens up over time and not many people use up full kilos very fast). The copper is so much thinner to do the same job as aluminium so the tree looks better, the job looks neater and as we dont really have any price difference there is no reason to use an inferior wire.