[A Forest Tale] TimS – Trident Thicket

[MJL]

It has been a cold and dreary, but mercifully dry, Saturday in Melbourne and i have itchy fingers for starting this group.

I had a look around at pots, and decided to go with this cream one. I couldn't bring myself to use the koyo in the end fearing any damage to it.

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Getting stuck into the polystyrene box fully to see what i have. Very conveniently they separated as 3-4 clumps of trees which made assembly very straight forward. Minimal root pruning was required which made life easy.

trident comp 1.jpeg

The small group also came apart for me to pull a few trees from.

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Roughing in were the primary clump and the secondaries will end up

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Top down view of the layout

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The saucer goes in for trial fit. This is an idea i have in my head but i don't know if it it will actually work, but basically this appears as a dry pond bed, but can also be filled for display purposes. It's going to get feral so it may be removed and become more trees or an open area in a wood in future

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Working some of the rocks i smashed up earlier in the thread in to hide the saucer from view.

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After a clean up and a little trim back of some of the trees

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Different angle

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And on a protected bench to settle in

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Total number of trees used is 23. I have i think 11 or so left over from the two groups i started with, so a smaller group will be in the future plans somewhere.

From here it will be mossed eventually, a pathway will be added and the saucer idea may be refined/ improved/ removed/ not sure yet. It is heavy but it is also manageable so i think i pass that rule! All in all i'm happy with it how it has come together, now i settle in for refining it for the next 3 years or whatever of the competition


For anyone wondering, that extra trident i picked up for potential use in the group has actually been cut back down to start life over being it's own tree

tridentrestart.jpeg

Hey Tim,
Thanks for the update...what kind of magic are you making here? Very interesting to see your use of tray and rocks and as you note - nothing to lose at this stage of development.

I find the front photo number 7 very interesting in a good way. There are a number of tree’s leaning slightly right - as if a chill wind may blow from the left when the weather turns ugly.

There’s something a tall, tense and mysterious about this setting - tempting one to venture around the rocks to explore beyond.... indeed photo 8 seems to show a lot of visual depth past the rocks, even with few trees. Cool start!




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[TimS]

Thanks Mark

The constraint of using thin trunks means (to my eye at least) that height is needed to compensate and give a feeling of maturity. I wanted to avoid splaying the trunks out like a bomb was dropped over the top from the ground level, but also i wanted a little bit out outward movement towards the top of the tree to indicate the need for them to grow out to find their own patch of sun. I've wired a few trunks here and there to stop them falling outwards in the 'bomb dropping' scenario look but generally they are in a decent position now.

I didn't want to cram the pot full of trees either, i wanted to aim for a look of a dense group (or thicket!) thinning out towards a riverbed or small lake. I may end up adding in some of the extra trees to the back just to fill that in a bit more, but overall i wanted that movement from dense forest> open clearing to come through.

The rock area will 100% be refined, i'm already looking at it thinking it's far too large, so i'll look for a smaller saucer and maybe do more of a decline down to it than the sudden rocks appearing. I might need to order a few takeaways to get some plastic containers and play around with things. Anyway, got a few years to work that idea through and refine it.

To me, looking at it now it feels cold and uninviting, a little spooky even. Not somewhere someone with xylophobia would want to be. I kind of like that, in so far when we stand under big trees it's the dominating nature of their height that makes us feel small and insignificant. I think there is something in that i might be able to play on as i develop this group.

[TimS]

Quick update,

My old Japanese Maple from my 'Japanese Maple Rebuild' thread is pretty desperate for a bare root as soon as the tree allows, so in preparation for that i freed up the big oval white pot to take over holding that tree by slip potting the thicket into the rectangular Koyo tray i have. Fortunatly enough time has passed that they have rooted to be come a single mass that can be lifted and moved so no disassembly was required.

This photo demonstrates what i need to keep doing over the next few years; develop some foliage on the extreme edge of the pot where it is currently very thin. the rest has filled in with nice undulation of height from the different trees but that edge is very bare right now. I might pull it apart a little in winter to tinker with some of the tree placements to help with that, but we'll see.

I had flirted with the idea of selling this pot, but it fits the forest perfectly and the colour ties back to my earlier 'inspiration' photo so why not use it, and i have a few months to consider if it would look better in the even larger Koyo oval pot or if that would look silly. Hopefully the 2023 autumn colours are strong against the green of whichever pot i decided this year to go with.

Anyway, quick shot fired off of it on the bench in the new pot next to the old pot

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[SquatJar]

Looks good in the new pot but I reckon a few more seedlings from Shibui for the outer edges and it'll go great in your bigger Koyo

[TimS]

It’s very tempting to use the big one, though way overkill to use such a rare pot for a newly created forest with such young plants. The fear of damaging to pot holds me back from using it but I’ll see if I can find a place to sit it where the risk of damage is lessened.

In winter I’ll get the pot out and see what it looks like, it’s significantly longer than the current green one so there will be a lot more space. That might turn out to be a good thing, or it might look stupid.

I think I’ve passed the cutoff for adding in more trees now, but I don’t think it needs more trunks at this stage

Edit: just went back and read a post from Mark saying the pot can change between this year and 2023 so I might just drop it into the big pot right at the end rather than potting it in this year and risk damaging it over the next 2 years

[MJL]

Good stuff Tim - coming along well. I know you’ve had a clear vision about this from the start and it is taking shape.

On the pot - yep, not many ‘rules’ in this comp - rather guidelines to keep us all ‘in the spirit’ of the comp. of course you’ll be able to change the pot. All good.


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[TimS]

The more i have watched this group develop, the more i have felt it isn't a forest, or my interpretation of the word 'forest' being a thicket. It has felt more and more like how i could best fit as many trees as possible into the pot.

My vision was originally about creating a thicket, a clump of trees that appear unexpectedly out of an otherwise not overly wooded area. My touching point for that was the river in Japan shown in an earlier post with the mountain in autumn colour rising behind it as it demonstrated something (being the river) as a barrier to the continued expansion of the forest.

I had no way of creating the mountain and tree scenario without investing heavily in some kind of obscure slab which i decided against. Mainly due to cost restraints, but also due to the fact that if changed my mind or it looked bad i'd have no other purpose for such a pot. I therefore planted out a flat group as you have been following and decided that i would use the width of the pot to insinuate this is a small patch of trees, not a small part of an entire forest.

My initial attempt at this was to extend off from one side of the pot across to the other to insinuate through progressively less densely planted trees that this is not a densely packed expanse, this is more like a group of trees spared in cleared area such as a windbreak. Instead what i personally think i ended up with was the bonsai equivalent of an experimental prog rock song. IE goes for far too long, no one has any idea what's going on and the creator can't find a way to finish it out.

So today I decided that while a few autumnal leaves still remain to give me an idea of how it will look in leaf, that i would pull some trees out of the planting and use empty space within the pot to show that this is a small thicket. Shock horror, who'd have thought that not using trees was a good way to convey there aren't any trees!

On the whole i'm a lot happier with the group now, it now makes sense to me having clearly defined beginnings and ends well within the pot width, and how it would continue to grow with activity around the extremities preventing further spread. I have one more idea i want to work in, but there's no point doing that until right before the end when i see if it a looks any good in my big tray as i'll just have to pull it out of the pot then anyway.

Mark let me know if you think dramatically changing the planting partway through is not in the spirit, i was taking advantage of the 'must be in the pot by the end of 2021' guideline to do this but if you think i've been too cheeky with it or others complain then just drop me a PM.

Couple of crappy, rushed, phone camera photos of where i ended up. I think i've even fiddled with it more after these were taken.

TMFa.jpeg

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[TimS]

Decided to try out the group with a moss 'grass' around it to tie in with idea of the thicket within a field. Thinking about putting a pathway through it or maybe removing the moss from under the central trunks and making a clearing but i'll wait and see if the moss actually survives before i get that far ahead. Yes the moss was collected on my property, i didn't break lockdown on a moss hunt!

Still 2 years before the comp finishes to think about the final look of it, but i've been working on an idea for the 'tale' aspect and how i will submit the final photos

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[TimS]

I've been having a think about how i will submit my final photos of this and came up with a plan. It will mean that i'll be photographing 'final' photos starting next year, so i got the good pot out to give it a go.

I've potted it really oddly, it's pushed right back to the rear edge of the pot and slightly to the left though it still looks quite central in the photo. I'm still toying with how i can do a bit more to spice it up rather than just some sticks in a nice pot but my hands are tied while we are in lockdown.

tridentkoyo.jpeg

[MJL]

I like it. Those slightly off to the right hand side are excellent -
adding quite a bit to the look. Definitely nice sticks in a bl@@dy nice pot.


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[Ryceman3]

That really is a super nice pot ... although the previous one wasn't too bad either, but there is nice and then there is NICE...

[rodm]

Well done. Like it very much
Cheers RodM

[Keels]

Nice work Tim. The Thicket is looking good in the new pot. Also isn't it a bit early for photos next year since the comp ends mid 2023? You'll rob yourself 12 months of development?

[TimS]

Nice work Tim. The Thicket is looking good in the new pot. Also isn't it a bit early for photos next year since the comp ends mid 2023? You'll rob yourself 12 months of development?

Yes you are right I absolutely will rob myself of 9-12 months of growing, but with how I want to submit the final photos I also will get that entire growing season too and it will all work out in the wash I hope

[Keels]

Nice work Tim. The Thicket is looking good in the new pot. Also isn't it a bit early for photos next year since the comp ends mid 2023? You'll rob yourself 12 months of development?

Yes you are right I absolutely will rob myself of 9-12 months of growing, but with how I want to submit the final photos I also will get that entire growing season too and it will all work out in the wash I hope

Sounds like your playing the strategy game May The Odds Be Ever In Your Favor