What is acheivable without wiring?

[Joshua]

Question as a poten-butant or pre-beginner (what do you call someone who's not even a beginner yet?)

If I decided that I never wanted to do any wiring at all - or perhaps a very strict minimum at some stage - and did only pruning/clip-and-grow for styling:
- What would be the main limitations?
- Would would one be able to acheive and what kind of things would be impossible without wiring?
- Any particular styles to go for or to avoid?
- Any particular species to use/avoid?
- Any other general remarks on this subject?

I've been curious about this, looking for some information and insight.
[And just as a disclaimer: I'm not saying I'll never do wiring, I probably will if ever the need arises. In any case that's for later on]

[treeman]

In the old days they never used wire. They used splints, guys, props and scissors.

[robb63]

Hi Joshua
Olive trees might be a good one to experiment on. Wild olives because they have the smaller leaves.
They will tend to give you lots of shoots above and below the pruned branch to cut then grow and repeat.
The limitations are the growth is naturally upward which is difficult to control and make a tree shape from.
Time is the other problem. Though clip n grow looks better it takes much longer.
I,m trying it with some ficus and collected olives but find I still need to use wire sometimes.

[juan73870]

As far as beginners plants that are suitable, I've found both Chinese elm and olive to be very easy to shape without wire. Just choose your direction, clip and grow.

[melbrackstone]

The art of Penjing seems to favour clip and grow more than most. Depending on the school.....I believe the Lingnan school is less inclined to use wire. Mostly though, you'll find that patience is the biggest ask for any technique...

In the old days they never used wire. They used splints, guys, props and scissors.

And in China I believe they still use silk strips...

[Joshua]

Cool thanks for the replies!
I guess by wiring I was referring to mechanical manipulation in general

[EdwardH]

I used to use wire almost exclusively however now I have gone over to primarily using the clip and grow method. For me I struggled to get natural looking movement with wire and have found clip and grow to give me better results.

[TimS]

Generally the wiring I tend to do is more for refinement tweaking rather than primary setting up.

I would say keep in the front of mind your lack of desire to wire when choosing pieces of rough stock. You become far more limited in how you can restyle it without significant cutting back without using wire. A lot of rough stock tends to have uninteresting movement (i here acknowledge the value of a formal upright with no movement at all), so you may have to pass up 50 unsuitable trees for one suitable one.

Clip and grow can really do any style I guess, depending on the growth habit of the tree. Maybe formal upright would be hard if you’re not going to wire a new leader in?

Having said that, far better movement comes from clip and grow than wire IMO. There are things wire just can’t do, certain angle and abrupt changes of direction that are beyond the ability of a wired branch to achieve without breaking or being killed.

Watching old mate Peter Chan when he styles trees on his YouTube channel, he always talks about wiring in an S curve and it drives me spare. It’s the exact reason I don’t wire young trunks anymore; because I inevitably ended up with boring and contrived lines like the S curve.

Clip and grow requires more forethought and growing with intent. Wire allows tweaking on the fly and makes final refinement easier imo. I think a middle ground of the two (no wire vs wire the bejesus out of it) is a nice balance

[Joshua]

Watching old mate Peter Chan when he styles trees on his YouTube channel, he always talks about wiring in an S curve and it drives me spare. It’s the exact reason I don’t wire young trunks anymore; because I inevitably ended up with boring and contrived lines like the S curve

Whenever I see the bonsai section of the nursery, pretty much every one has this big S curve or a spiral that just doesn't look right to me. Not my taste. My Mrs seems to like them though

I just had a quick look at Peter Chan's channel, on his beginners playlist, and the first video I saw seems to contradict pretty much all the advice I've heard to far.
I guess that confirms the idea that for one question you'll have many different conflicting opinions.

[shibui]

The S curve is not good bonsai but it is what sells to the ill informed masses. It has become what they expect bonsai to look like
You probably can't blame the nurseries for catering to the demand and producing what sells but then we have to explain to the unsuspecting punters afterward that their new tree is not really attractive and not really good bonsai.
Please resist the temptation to make S curves but don't give up putting movement in trunks. The trick is to get random bends with different radius and different amplitude. That takes a little more time and experience which is probably why the mass producers don't do it very well.

Pruning can give good bends. I have spent most of last week pruning little maples back to a side branch or bud to try to get some trunks with low bends.
Wiring can also get good bends into thin trunks but I find it harder to get sharper, small radius bends with wire. Wiring also does not give taper. Taper seems to be best added by pruning.