AusBonsai

My English Oak taken today with my now preferred front. The Reverse taper is not as noticable in this one I think

I will now start to build the top, and will eventually be another 4 - 6 inches taller.

hey KC, yea you are right its not as noticeable, but it is slightly still but i think you could get away with that i will do a quick line of where i thought of the air layer and how it would help the tree. if it would help the tree aswell

virt is rough but im in the car at the moment and the laptop is bouncing around a bit sorry

Thanx for all the feedback guys. i think that i will get the oak next weekend!

Nice Jamie and the card does make nice twisted roots

Food for thought, though would this lower the first 2 branches too much?

Ken

kcpoole wrote:Nice Jamie and the card does make nice twisted roots

Food for thought, though would this lower the first 2 branches too much?

Ken

hey mate, yea it does a little. there fore you could do the airlayer a bit lower or you could remove the first left hand branch, and rebuilr from higher in the apex , you said you were planning on this one being 4-6 inches higher yes?
this would fix both problems

kcpoole wrote:My English Oak taken today with my now preferred front. The Reverse taper is not as noticable in this one I think

I will now start to build the top, and will eventually be another 4 - 6 inches taller.

I think the reverse taper is caused by the dead knob right at the front of this photo when you see from the side. This could be easily reduced by a bit of carving. I would just use a branch cutter or a concave cutter to remove this knob hard then apply the japanese cut paste. This will heal the scar better too and definitely improve the taper.
Cheers
DK

Jamie's suggestion about air-layering is a good idea too. I however would do an earth-layering as this is dead easier and have a great chance of success too. Since the tree is short, all you need is just do a bark-ring job and put it inside a taller pot then fill the suitable medium to the desired level and water it well. You'll have a great Oak in 8 to 10 weeks. I'm doing some similar work with my crab apple.

Ken, any chance of an update on you Quercus palustris please

Craig wrote:Ken, any chance of an update on you Quercus palustris please

Unfortunately no
That one got its roots eaten by far too many curl grubs and succumbed to a fungal infection as a result.
this is one of the reasons why I went looking for substrates that will not harbour the grubs.

since finding Diatomite I have not seen any

Ken

This is the best Oak bonsai I have ever seen, worldwide...AusBonsai's own Peter H

Sorry to hear that Ken,thanks anyway mate.

Thanks Scott, great treee but it's an English oak, not Palustris

I was aked this week in PM to show off some Oak Trees I have
I thought I will just update this thread with them rather than create a new one

1st up is some update pics of my Quercus Palustris - Pin Oak

The internodes on the new growth are really long on the first flush of growth, so I cut them back hard to only 1 leaf. This promotes new shoot and these tend to have shorter inter nodes and smaller leaves too.

I am trying to Thread graft a new branch in the top 1/3 of the trunk, but are having trouble with it. Once i get a branch there I will repot into a shallower pot mor suited to the tree. I hope by doing this it will slow down the initial flush of growth, allowing me to reduce the leaf size earlier in the season.

Ken

The next Group are original Quercus Robur - English Oak from Seed. These look very much like my original tree i lost, in that the leaves are the same shape, sixe and texture.
I have 2 of them and they are both planted out in the garden to put on some faster growth. They are very slow in pots.
they will stay there for a few years now

Ken

the last trees i have, came from a Dig in Goubourn from this thread here viewtopic.php?f=25&t=8329&hilit=watto+d ... 30#p100105

they are definitely Different than the Sydney English Oaks i have so ??

Anyway i collected 2 on the day and 1 did not survive the repotting this year, but the other one is poering on well and I have taken a layer off of it so at to reduce the height and to make another tree

Ken

HI Ken, I really enjoyed reading the updates on your oaks thanks!
It is cool that your Eng Oak is sill here after the early days...it must be great to have had it as a seedling from more than 20 years ago!
It is now coming along really well! I love the movement it has in he pics from when you first posted it despite the reverse taper, and I think carving it out in areas over the length of the trunk to enhance the movement may have been an option?...although it looks great from the current front and that is obviously how you have been designing it in recent years.
It has beautiful bark too
I like what you have done wih your pin oak too and think that it looks better with the lower right branch removed. The ramification on both of them is starting to fill out.
Thanks for the pics of the others you are developing too, oaks are lots of fun to grow. The one you got on the dig with Watto is looking good. Ken, do you recall how long it took for the air layer to set?
I love looking at mature oak trees in local gardens, there is something majestic about them and I hope to one day see some really old examples in Europe.
If any other AB members are growing oaks it would be great to see them. The pic that Scott R posted of Peter H's tree is awesome and it would be great to see more info on oaks in general.
Thanks again Ken.
Cheers, Dario.