My New Corky Bark Elm

[BGM1971]

Hi Everyone.

On Thursday, being an OK day, I went and had my all too regular walk around my local Bonsai nursery, Orient Bonsai Nursery.
I was there mainly looking for a birthday present, when this Elm caught my eye.
It stands at 47cm tall from the base of it's pot. At $90.00, I had to have it.
It has a very nice trunk.
The main problems I can see are that it doesn't have much of a root structure and the canopy is a bit light.
I'm thinking of just letting it grow out for a couple of years and seeing what it does.
What are your thoughts?

[Dumper]

you can put them in a bigger pot or in the ground for a while to let it establish stronger roots
when there's more roots. it's easier to do the rest

[Jamie]

hi mate

what I would be doing with this one would be to air layer the top off and develop a shohin tree from that, then see what pops from the trunk and go from there, i reckon you could actually get 2 mid sized trees out of this one, or even 3 smaller ones

[kvan64]

I vote for the airlayering too. Even if you let it grow, it's very hard to back bud lower down where they are needed. Even if it does, the branches won't be able to catchup the size of the upper branches that are already too thick.

[GavinG]

Nice texture in the trunk, but not much happening for a looong way up - if you air-layer the top, maybe take that first heavy branch as the trunk line, with a nice solid bend, and lose what's above it. Elms should shoot back from the trunk.

Have fun,

Gavin