All 
,This is a Melaleuca Rhaphiophylla , i purchased this tree from a bonsai nursery, it was just laying around .
The tree was most likely collected from somewhere around perth and had been left to fend for itself out the back of the nursery. It was totally rootbound when i got it and stood like 2meters high or something, i can't remember. The first thing i did was repot into a large bonsai pot, it measures 650x470x170mm, i did not do alot to the roots at that time but i did cut the bottom half of the rootball off with a saw
.I let the tree recover for some time and tried to decided what i could possibly do with this tree. The trunks had pretty much no taper and branching wasn't the greatest.So i finally thought the best outcome would be to reduce the height of the trunks. I figured that a burnt out look was the go, the tall tree will be hollow as is the fire burnt out the guts of it and the smaller trunk will be the same but different
. The main trunk was reduced to a height ,so the finished height of the tree will be around 5 times the the width of the base . The height ended up as 420mm high on the left and 185mm high on the right, the base of the trunk is 135mm accross.
The tree was now going to need to recover, from memory it was cut down in about early August , it slowly recovered and put out a good crop of new branches, there are a couple of places i was hoping buds would burst from ,but ahh not to be. Growing strong again i began pinching the extending shoots when they started to form 4 to 6 side shoots, and i have been repeating that process on a daily basis this spring.
As you can see i have opened up the trunk so it will begin to harden off and age. The tall trunk has a hole drilled right down the center of it and a hole for drainage at the bottom, ofcourse that will look alot different when i carve it all up .
thanks for reading, comments always welcome,
- when will you start the carving ?
, I appreciate your reply mate, Sometimes to see the vision, you need to understand how the tree in question grows. Rhaphiophylla where i live grow in various ways, the swamp rhaphs, most usually have rotted out inside of their trunks, i have a couple here that are hollow as described, . So they rot when flooded with water and the bushfire burn them out in summer, thats the story this tree will tell with time,, thanks for being interested 
