Vitis vinifera

[Starfox]

Hey all, received this common grape vine today and I think it was a pretty good score. Much bigger than the pics suggest but overall am really excited by it. Plenty of twists, hollows and dead wood as well.
Definitely looking forward to this one, I worked in and around vineyards for years so there is a bit of nostalgia in it as well although presumable training as a bonsai will differ a fair bit.

Anyway cheers for looking.

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[Pearcy001]

Great score!

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[Starfox]

Cheers Pearcy!

[Watto]

Looks great, especially like the movement of the trunk, its a bit different.

[MJL]

Lovely stuff Starfox - I really like the line of that second photo - 7576. It’s interesting (to me anyway) how trees help to us focus on different things ... here the trunk - cool that this future bonsai story and yours are connected via vineyards in some way.


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[Matt S]

Great trunk on that! How long has it been in a pot?

Last year at our annual exhibition Chris Drinkwater had a nice grape vine, but the trunk wasn’t as gnarly as yours.

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(..and the picture is sideways. I’ll fix it when I get home)

Matt

[terryb]

Hey Starfox, great character in that trunk. Would be keen to hear you thoughts on how you might proceed with training.

I air-layered a small branch off my glory vine last year as a bit of an experiment. I'm looking forward to seeing what the roots have done in the coming weeks. In terms of the crown, I will probably treat it like my mature vine in the first instance- prune back hard to two buds per cane.

[Starfox]

[/quote]

Looks great, especially like the movement of the trunk, its a bit different.

Yeah it is rather striking, I think it could be enhanced a good deal too by someone who knows how to deal with the deadwood properly.

Lovely stuff Starfox - I really like the line of that second photo - 7576. It’s interesting (to me anyway) how trees help to us focus on different things ... here the trunk - cool that this future bonsai story and yours are connected via vineyards in some way.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Definitely that second photo is the better front, it's a bit too clean on the other side but still nice and twisty.
It's funny how things go round in circles like that, I thought I'd had my fill of grapes unless they came in a bottle but when I saw this I didn't have to give it a great deal of thinking. I wasn't into bonsai back then and looking back at it some of the old vines we used to rip out because they were damaged would have been excellent candidates. Oh well....

[/quote]

Great trunk on that! How long has it been in a pot?

Last year at our annual exhibition Chris Drinkwater had a nice grape vine, but the trunk wasn’t as gnarly as yours.

F6833B79-F4D6-4FD4-B490-D6E7ABA2A2D8.jpeg

(..and the picture is sideways. I’ll fix it when I get home)

Matt

I couldn't really say how long it has been in there, an educated guess would be maybe a season or two. It's not pot bound and looks to be in nursery soil and pumice mix. I guess I could always ask but I like a bit of mystery.
That's a neat vine, thanks for sharing. The accent is a touch of class.

[/quote]

Hey Starfox, great character in that trunk. Would be keen to hear you thoughts on how you might proceed with training.

I air-layered a small branch off my glory vine last year as a bit of an experiment. I'm looking forward to seeing what the roots have done in the coming weeks. In terms of the crown, I will probably treat it like my mature vine in the first instance- prune back hard to two buds per cane.

Cheers Terry, I think initially I'm going sit down with it over the weekend and work out what I want to thin out first and from there probably leave it be until winter. There is enough branching already in place to build upon so once the leaves have dropped I'll get a better idea for shaping and wire but I think cutting back this years growth to two buds would be the way forward. It looks as if it will ramify this way from what I can see has already been done, instead of removing the old spurs just build on them by 2 budding it each year in winter and then going back in in spring to remove what you don't want and stay on top of letting long canes form.
I'd imagine a Glory vine would be treated in a similar way, definitely it would have striking foliage.

This is only my way of thinking though, I may be way off the mark here but it seems logicalish.

[Starfox]

Update.

We have a naked vine, still seems ok so hopefully can nurse this through winter.
Soon I will do some light trimming as mentioned above and add some wire for shape. Also think I'll look to do a repot over winter/spring as I really want it in a substrate I understand better. Probably put it back in the same pot as I doubt I'll find one big enough for it that I like and can afford.
I have looked and I would love this bad boy https://www.laosgarden.com/es/de-autor- ... mazan.html but that is out of my price range and even too much for a chrissy present.

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I also had a bit of a poke around and cleared out some of the dead wood, not a lot but enough to find a couple of nice hollows and plenty of deadwood structure to play with. I guess my plan with that is to try and carve/blend the round looking cuts and then give it a bit of a deeper clean out and lime sulfur it. Bit hesitant with that so I'm not in a rush but think it'd be worth the effort.

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[SquatJar]

Looks great naked,

that Terahata Mazan pot is big at 52cm round. From the look of your first picture with the heineken it seems like you won't need a pot that large.
If something around 30cm round will work you should be able to find one by Terahata in the same style much cheaper.

Good luck with the search, it's a beautiful grape bonsai.

[greg27]

I really like this one Starfox, thanks for sharing the extra pics and please keep us updated with your carving work

[Starfox]

Looks great naked,

that Terahata Mazan pot is big at 52cm round. From the look of your first picture with the heineken it seems like you won't need a pot that large.
If something around 30cm round will work you should be able to find one by Terahata in the same style much cheaper.

Good luck with the search, it's a beautiful grape bonsai.

Yeah I really wanted to see it without the leaves and now have a better idea on what to do next.

That's a big can of beer though, the pot it's in is 44cm wide and 20 deep so I wouldn't really want to stray too far from those dimensions, maybe a bit shallower though. There is a nice green Terahata on that site too closer to 44 but still 400 euros. Might have to put any major purchases off after xmas anyway due to all this 2020 nonsense.

I really like this one Starfox, thanks for sharing the extra pics and please keep us updated with your carving work

No worries, will update when I do something for sure/

[SquatJar]

Yea I think that pot would be an even better match for the tree and better price too.

I also found this big one on sale 50% off at the moment.

http://medibonsai.com/es/nuevas/3446-ma ... 77404.html

Is there major roots stopping you from going smaller than 40cm?
The pot size it is in now seems like it might be too visually heavy once you go to ceramic,
narrower and deeper can work well for a sinuous trunk like this too. A good dilemma to have.

Can't wait to see it potted whenever the time comes,

[Starfox]

Yea I think that pot would be an even better match for the tree and better price too.

I also found this big one on sale 50% off at the moment.

http://medibonsai.com/es/nuevas/3446-ma ... 77404.html

Is there major roots stopping you from going smaller than 40cm?
The pot size it is in now seems like it might be too visually heavy once you go to ceramic,
narrower and deeper can work well for a sinuous trunk like this too. A good dilemma to have.

Can't wait to see it potted whenever the time comes,

Now that one is more inline with my budget, going to have a browse of medibonsai now.
Actually now I think about it I have been wanting an excuse for a Mariusz Folda pot for a while and at his prices I may be able grab a smaller one as well.
https://ibuki-shop.com/shop/pots/unglazed/bpu324/
https://ibuki-shop.com/shop/pots/glazed/bpg323/
https://ibuki-shop.com/shop/pots/glazed/bpg270/

I don't think there are major root issues, it's mostly in field soil so could likely reduce the pot size just by washing it out.
My biggest worry would be balance as the vine is quite top heavy even more so when loaded with grapes.