AusBonsai

KCaR, some damn fine herbage in those photos -which books did they come from? I particularly like the last.

Gavin

GavinG,
mate the pics were just google searched. I agree with you though on the last tree. The balance & composition between the straight trunk, curving branches, & planting position is unique. .. Something memorable even many days later.

The 100yr+ old trident maple pictured belongs to Peter Tea. There is a background story on his blog titled "The Strange Trident Maple" which he discusses creating uniqueness from areas that would [normally] otherwise be cut away or replaced, because of being too strange? I recommend checking his archive story out, as he explains that there shouldn't be just "one way" to creating.

All the best KC&R

Well, I wrapped it and heavy wired, then used a trunk bender to bend it as my hands weren't strong enough. The very straight branch is significant bent now. I hope it hasn't snapped. This clump is becoming a fun experiment. If it continues to look odd then I will cut the trunks as suggested. I figure it couldn't hurt to try various methods but I totally understand the bending doesn't produce taper, and I also understand that I might be wasting time not chopping sooner and thank you for all your advice!

Right! I had another go at this today. I tied bending the left trunk but after months with the bender on them taking it off, it slowly moved back to being straight again. And I decide treeman is correct in that bending a taperless trunk just makes it a bent yet still taperless trunk.

My latest work with some potential virts, we will see what comes of it now.

Chopped back left and middle branches to encourage new shoots lower on these trunks:


If I get shoots where I want:


Same thing but more extreme making left trunk a big jin:


I wasn’t able to delete the rest of the trunk poking leftwards on the left trunk (the currently jinned area) as I did these virts on my iPhone, but that would be removed eventually.

Most recent adjustment

I like it Beano. Austere with attitude.



Bonsai teaches me patience.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thumbs up from me!

Looks good.

Hey Beano
Really like what you've done with this tree.
Cheers PeterB