AusBonsai

Several Months ago, I collected some Radiata pine for the bush north of Sydney. I showed them in this thread here.
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4876&hilit=radiata&start=45

2 out of the 3 survived and are shooting like mad. 1 is bean pole straight but has go some low shoots bursting thru the bark, and which I have some plans for once the new growth develops over the next few years, and the other survivor is a bit larger and with a nice bend out of the ground

Above the bend it goes straight up so yesterday thought i need to experiment with some big bending to get some more interest happening.

I did not have a bender big enough but lots of scrap steel around to bodgy up something.

I got some decent movement out of it without resorting to splitting the trunk/ Drilling relief holes etc this time round, but need to get some more on the first bend. I will tighten it up over the next few months if this one seems OK and then probably try to split the trunk to get the next bend up the trunk

I would like to get the first 2 bends done then eventually jin above the new shoots on the left. one of these will be the future apex probably

lurv the 'bodgy' trunk-bender... are u marketing those .. ?
Matt.

Way to go with the bender KC. How does it go ..necessity is the mother of invention..or something like that

My Bender seems to be doing the stuff OK, But I woud love to get the next bend up happening sooner rather than later, and after all the twisted juniper threads recently ( including mine), and other threads and Vidies on Drilling holes, embedding wire etc, I thought I might experiment on the top bit of this one.

I have Raffia, a Dremel and 6mm wire, so lets have a bash
The plan is to carve a grrove in the trunk and insert a large diameter wire, and which will sty in the tree forever. Wrap with raffia, and more supporting wires, and bend

Stay tuned for the results

Ken

Next task is to wrap and bend

As can be seen, with a bit of muscle and a knee to start, a bend of 100 Deg + is easy to achieve. No bending jig required to do this to a Tree with mature bark and a diameter over 30 mm.

Larger material I assume will be similar.

The only this now, is have I damaged the cambium and or bark which will cause it to die
I heard a few little tears, but no big cracks so hopefully it will be OK

I will now leave it till spring, and if it has not carked it by then, I will do the lower half of the trunk where I want my bends.

FYI, the Wire inside should be hidden eventually when the bark rolls over the groove I carved. It will be interesting to see how long that takes

Ps Skippy did a similar thing to a tree of his ans posted here viewtopic.php?f=121&t=3517&start=0&hili ... lit#p29139

Hope everyone else can get a little inspired too to try something different

Ken

awesome job ken that is one serious bend

Hi Ken,

I missed this one before. I like the opening where to insert the wire in. One-side-cut will help it heal a lot quicker, I guess.

So, how long are you planing to leave it on? My observation is that radiatas seem to heal a bit quicker than black pine?

I like what you do with the trunk also. I could certainly copy your techniques here for my other pines.

Please keep us update the progress

Cheers Ken.

Not sure were you're heading with this one by putting a huge u bend up high in the trunk like that, may have been better off just using one of the side branches to change direction like this one ...

kcpoole wrote:Hi paul
I dunno if they are classed as easily damaged or not, but the bend I put into my Pinus Pinea ( I origially thought Radiata), Was no trouble when I did the 2 bends shown in this thread
viewtopic.php?f=131&t=7125&p=93612&hili ... ata#p93612

and then here is the top bit after separating the layer a few months agao
viewtopic.php?f=131&t=9472&p

Ken

Ken, are you sure your tree is Pinus pinea ( italian stone pine) , does it get juvenile foliage like this

Oh the pore thing. Where are the Greenies Man I have seen you Members do some things with your trees that I would not even contemplate.
You wrap them in wire and contort them until they crack And then you bend them some more .
Looking at the clamp in the 3rd image of your first post Kc I can see that imho that it would leave an indent in the trunk

Booga wrote: Looking at the clamp in the 3rd image of your first post Kc I can see that imho that it would leave an indent in the trunk

I have not taken it off yet, so have no idea what it is like underneath. Later this winter I will take it off as I want to get a much tighter bend in the lower trunk and then a reaverse (much tighter) bend higher up

Hi craig.
I originally thought the tree was a Radiata, but have been told recently that it is not a radiata but a Pinea instead as my identification skills on trees are Just plain bloody awfu, I have now real ide what it is
Was collected in the hills up behind Gosford NSW so if any local there knows what it is I will be most happy to find out.

Ken

ozzy wrote:Not sure were you're heading with this one by putting a huge u bend up high in the trunk like that, may have been better off just using one of the side branches to change direction like this one ...]

Hi Azzy, did not see this reply, but the plan was to do a test to see if
a/ the tree will survive a bund that sharp
b/ whether I can then layer it off within a year and have it survive

Happy to say both worked out

ken

Bump Ken

Will take some updated pics on the weekend, but happy to say both are doing well.
The top section recovering and growing, but still not enough roots to get rough with yet. Probably next year.

The bottom section I repotted a month or so ago, and was going to do the carve and bend on it, but when I got out of the pot I realised I had not removed any of the large roots from the base.
I decided to do the root reduction then rather than the bending, as I took off heaps or root and wanted to make sure it survived that before doing the bend.
Next winter I will look at doing the bending work after regrowing the root mass over summer
Lots of Fert to come for this one till then

Ken

this is very cool. i wonder if you could use the same technique to get some taper in straight trunk. hollow out a big hole in the center core at the top and gradually reduce the diameter as you go down. then cut a long V shape in the back or somewhere where its not obvious, then pull the whole thing back together with some really tight wire.

i have great looking ficus benjamina but not a lot of taper, i may try this and see how it looks. ficus are pretty resilient so i expect the tree will cope with it.
note that i plan on cutting the top off just above that first branch on the left, then peg graft in some of the upper branches from the bit i'm cutting off