Chinese Elm natural field style

[GavinG]

It's a very fine tree, and the blue pot suits it better, I think. I agree that clip-and-grow gives a different appearance to trees - more crisp angles and complexity.

But my eye was drawn to the piece of art on the wall above and to the left - any chance of a close-up? It looks to be very interesting brush-work.

Gavin

[TimS]

It's a very fine tree, and the blue pot suits it better, I think. I agree that clip-and-grow gives a different appearance to trees - more crisp angles and complexity.

But my eye was drawn to the piece of art on the wall above and to the left - any chance of a close-up? It looks to be very interesting brush-work.

Gavin

Cheers Gavin,

They both are original block prints by Kono Bairei, circa 1884 from his series Album of 100 birds. Despite this they are not particularly valuable, but i do love them none the less. This one especially with the toning through the cliff edge and the cascading pine in the bottom right corner.

kbai.jpg

[GavinG]

Thanks for that. Because I couldn't see the detail, all I reacted to was the dynamic energy of the composition, which is splendid! I think you have a treasure.

Gavin

[AndreasM]

Just wanted to say thank you for an excellent thread on your elm. As a total beginner with my first tree an elm it is great to see a tree develop over a few years. always looking forward to more posts about this one!

[TimS]

Just wanted to say thank you for an excellent thread on your elm. As a total beginner with my first tree an elm it is great to see a tree develop over a few years. always looking forward to more posts about this one!

Thanks for taking the time to read through lots of my waffling! Hopefully something useful could be taken from it for your trees. It’s been a wonderful tree to learn and grow with, and despite being a ‘beginner’ species they do make lovely trees.

An update on this one shouldn’t be too far away ( basically when I can pull my finger out and do a restyle on it for the new front) so keep an eye out in the next few weeks

[TimS]

I had forgotten how quickly this tree dries out in the blue pot, and it wasn't really growing particularly well. Not sick but just not pushing much foliage at all, so i've been much more attentive on the watering and it powered away to the point of being very shaggy which now means it needs even more watering attention.

I've left it long for a few weeks to let it regain strength and push growth, and now it's time to cut it back before the delicate ramification gets too much thicker.

I have pulled 2 branches in the apex down a little as they had sprung up over time, and wired up the odd branch here and there to fill in some gaps, but by and large left it largely as it was.

It wasn't a meticulous cut back making sure i get all excessive growth, i save that for the end of summer to maintain the silhouette and set up next year's buds, so the 'final' result isn't necessarily perfect.

Before idea of how shaggy it had gotten

IMG_1337.jpg

IMG_1338.jpg

Nice pile of prunings

IMG_1339.jpg

And afterwards result.

IMG_1340.jpg

IMG_1341.jpg

[TimS]

Getting my Pre-Autumn Trim in tonight; basically, at this time of the year I'm going in to remove all dead material and cut back to set up Spring. Lovely thing about Chinese elm is it will respond well to this treatment and throw buds from even the oldest wood on the tree come Spring.

Yes i have cost myself a lot of Autumn colour, but i might squeeze in one more flush before Autumn, and if i don't then the tree is set already.

I'm not intending to display this tree this year in any shows having had it in 2 consecutive Waverly shows, so I've really gone in to get as much of the dead ramification out as possible, and i cut back quite hard to get things back under control that i had left a little longer for a bit more 'show effect'. I should have taken a before photo, but scroll up to the previous post and you'll get an idea of how it looked before i started as a whole

Here's the 'before' photo i did take; half the canopy before significant removal

PAT1.jpg

After removing dead material and cutting back

PAT2.jpg

An idea how how thinned out it is now

PAT3.jpg

Final photo overview, the canopy on the left of the photo needs some further work

PAT4.jpg

[AndreasM]

might give mine a bit of a trim then, too. it has been growing like nothing else in its grow pot, but there are a couple of branches that getting very long indeed, and going in the wrong direction.

[TimS]

might give mine a bit of a trim then, too. it has been growing like nothing else in its grow pot, but there are a couple of branches that getting very long indeed, and going in the wrong direction.

Not going to hurt to make some choices now about what you want it to focus its energy on in the future. This one is a bit of a pain with so much ramification to work through, but worthwhile doing for sure