Ways to remedy reverse taper

[stymie]

Removing extremely narrow strips of bark with a veiner in vertical lines at the thin area is another ruse. Again, it takes time to have the desired effect. Multiple approach grafts into the part which needs thickening are comparatively quick and extraneous roots and foliage look unsightly until they are removed. This is usually possible after two seasons of growth - by far the quickest method that I have used,

[Jamie]

gday Don

thats what i was trying to explain with the vertical slices

[kcpoole]

Graft a branch or 2 under the reverse bit and this will swell the area below it hopefully. You can leave the branches in the final design, or take them off once they have done the job.

Ken

[MattA]

In the future try to avoid the urge to acquire trees with reverse tapper. If you cant carve it out it will take many years to try and correct and most of the times wont work. Damaging the cambium in the area you want to enlarge only works sometimes and most of the times its not enough to correct reverse tapper, not to mention it takes loads of time. Try to avoid buying a tree with handle bar branches. Most of the times this is were I find a reverse taper. Try to grow a sacrifice branch below the reverse taper. Don't remove the branch until the taper is corrected. Depending on the species and the size of the tree. This might leave a huge scar. So rather throw the tree away and stop waisting your time or do a air layer above the reverse taper and grow a new tree from there on.
Sorry if this sounds evil. But its the truth.

Juan

Juan I dont buy trees, in general.. I acquire the odd bit from others in trade or because its too good an offer to refuse eg the pine & callary pear. The bechtels crab & grevillea are both collected trees and given the rest of the attributes of both trees I am quite happy to spend 20yrs working to fix the problems that come with such ones.

I will post some pics up when I have my pc back up & running, too much hassle to reload software etc on my mates to do photos & then the fun of moving them & I usually end up loosing lots of stuff when I have to shift bulk loads of files around from machine to machine. None of these trees are candidates for the mulcher so its hard yards & lots of years , worth it in the long run.

Welcome to Ausbonsai

Thanks to everyone else for all the options and ideas.
Matt

[Gerard]

You Are spot on there Juan avoidance is the best remedy, another good solution is the mulcher, that may sound a little harsh but sometimes your efforts are best expended on really good material the exception being nishiki pines which due to grafting almost always have a reverse taper, if you get one on its own roots cherish it.
Craig

I have never really understood why grafted trees are left like this.
Is air layering or ground layering an option which is likely to fail?
Is root grafting a good option?
I ask this because I recently purchased a grafted yatsabusa nursery stock, very nice very cheap until I got it home and dug beneath the soil to find an ugly graft (a lesson for us all)
Still not a bad tree but do I perservere or move it on?

[craigw60]

Hi Gerard, Nishiki pines are generally grown for their bark alone, when I was in Japan I saw incredibly old ones with the tiniest narrow trunk at the base which seemed to be quite acceptable. I guess its all about positives out weighing negatives in some trees, the bark on these trees was totally amazing.
Craig

[gargar]

Heres the calitris i split. I'm not really proud of the tree, i did it a long time ago and its in need of restyling. it is a hard tree to keep compact because pinching promotes very fine new shoots on the end but not much backbudding.

[Jamie]

gday gargar

i consider the callitris to be similar to juniper, with juniper pinching will not create back budding as such, what it does is increase the density at the tips, if you want back budding you actually have to trim some, and also allow a good amount of air and light in to the areas you want back budding.
i would presume similar with callitris, maybe only on newer wood though, i think backbudding onto old wood with them can be extremely difficult if at all.


read that from a thread written by Boon i think he has a fair idea on things.

jamie

[MattA]

Yesterday I spent some time talking with a good friend, who i consider has infinitely more knowledge of bonsai and general horticulture than myself, regarding my Yatsubusa black pine and possible courses of action to remedy the reverse taper. His suggestion was a simple one but one I think actually makes sense, plant it in the ground and do not disturb the roots for a few years.

The theory being that by allowing the roots free rein it will help to pull out the reverse taper. What are others thoughts on this?

I am experimenting with hammering the Grevillea, it is a pretty hefty tree with some age(from conversations with a neighbour, it was already there when she moved in 40yrs ago) with a trunk of about 6" at the narrow section (between original ground level and nebari. I gave it a few really good whacks at several places around the trunk, I will allow some time to heal then hit it at the points I didnt do this time. I will repeat this process over the course of the next few years and see what effect it has. I have taken photos of it now as a reference, will post at some stage.

Matt

[Bretts]

I asked once how long it takes for a graft to grow out so that it can't be seen anymore. The answer I got was never it just gets worse. Now a few years ago this was a sensible question for me as I often see large trees that I know where grafted but you can't find the graft anymore. So although I know there are some Pines that seem to get worse as they get older I am still not sure to believe the advice I was given as always the case
One of the trees I was curious about is a double red flowering hawthorn. It doesn't have a bad graft on it so as well as using for cuttings I plan on seeing if I let it get big enough the graft will be good for bonsai.

I again don't believe the fear mongering over inverse taper. The masters have shown us that any problem that we come across has a solution if we use ingenuity.
There is always a solution whether it be air layer or splitting the trunk some thing as simple as removing the offending branch or better root training to even turning the tree upside down as was suggested.

I say show us the trees with the problem and we will show you how to fix it
Ok maybe in some instances the stock is not worth fixing but lets say anything worth more than $50 for starters

[lindsay farr]

The philosophical text TAO TE CHING by Lao Tzu is the mother of bonsai culture.

In this text, Lao Tzu states " Great carpenters do little cutting"

What Lao Tzu means is that if you find the right piece of wood, then it need not be cut.

Great drama can be created with a reverse taper. I would be more interested creating art by individuality.

There are no doubt many ways to create basal flare. The most creative option is to find material that already has it.

If you desire basal flare then the "way" is to find material that has that feature.

Cheers
Lindsay

[MattA]

The "Way" is different for us all...

Do you choose the short & direct freeway? = Stock that requires little to make into a bonsai.
OR
The long & winding road? = Stock that needs ingenuity and effort to bring it into the realm of bonsai.

I will always choose the long & winding road, I learn more and it is more satisfying.

With my pc out of action I have been spending alot of time with my head in a number of books. "The World of Bonsai Artist Kunio Kobayashi", "Man Lung Penjing" and another put out by Taoyuan Bonsai Clip Art and Stone Association (I dont know what its actually called) as well as several Kokufu Exhibition books. Many of these superb trees would not pass the standards we seem to be trying to achieve, few have 'perfect' nebari, many have reverse taper to varying degrees (the nishiki pines are just the most obvious).

Spend some time really studying the trees of the Japanese, Chinese and other countries that have been at it alot longer than we and many of the aims we set ourselves in this art are missing the point.

Now back to my long winding road.
Matt

[Greenhorn]

well said matta

[Greth]

Im a fan of the long and winding road too.
Interesting note on grafts. In a particularly bad storm, a tree in a botanic garden in England snapped. It snapped exactly at the graft point. Why is this interesting? The graft was done a hundred years before. Grafts never truly heal, and a cutting will never have as strong a root system as a plant grown from seed. Fact, live with it, it doesnt mean grafted plants or cuttings will never be good, just means they will never quite be the same as whole plants.
I have a personal feud with grafted passionfruit, I have had enormous weed problems from rampant rootstock while the fruiting part dies off. This has now been ongoing for 20 years, Im still ripping up rootstock, but I do have two plants on their own roots.

[MattA]

Greth I am with you on the grafted passionfruit, lots promised by them but all I got was the same as you, lots of suckers from even the smallest roots left behind and the actual fruiting vine died in just 12mths. Thankfully its someone elses problem these days.

The best passionfruit vine I ever had came up by itself in my parents garden, the most fruit & the best flavour. Tho it did have a bad habit of going feral amongst the tiles on the roof and eventually had to be removed. Dad fell off trying to clear some out one time

Matt

Btw the rootstock does produce the most beautiful orange fruit, but they are dry tasteless things. I kept a big chunk of one but keep it confined to a pot so i dont have the sucker problem in this garden, it would be impossible to get out if it invaded the recycled concrete sections.