AusBonsai

I collected this Hackberry from the side of the highway in spring 2009. The trunk already had the large scar on it, which is what attracted me to it. It's under gone three lots of wiring and I defoliated it 2 weeks ago. In 2010 late winter, as the buds began to swell, I cut the tap root back hard to allow future planting into a shallow pot. As it is a Hackberry (which is a complete weed here in brisbane as far as I know) I've treated it very hard and it hasn't shown any signs of stress. So I plan on putting it in a bonsai put at the end of this winter as the buds swell. This was one of my first collected trees, so I'm kinda excited about potting it as bonsai.

I'm not sure what style of pot will suit it, any ideas?
Any criticism will be welcome. I'm a beginner so I need all the help I can get.

Great find. i would be growing some sacrifice branch on the lower half of the truck of cure the reverse taper. You may have to graft the sacrifice branches as it doesn't look like there is much growing down low and if you graft you can position them at the back of the truck so that when you remove the sacrifice branch the scar wont be so obvious. Other then that i would let rest at least a year and then maybe continue styleing. You will have a very nice tree in a few years time. How about the nebari? any photos?

There are latent buds in the reverse taper area - if you let the tree grow freely for the rest of the season and do a hard cut back in spring, one of those buds will pop. You need to cut back the branches anyway because some of them need ramification close to the trunk.

Keep the tree in a bigger container until the tree is almost finished. Putting it in a bonsai pot will slow down it's development.

Lennard

Doing some nice work there for a one year old

They grow like weed here so new branches are certainly not a problem if you want some sacrificial branches, and it won't slow down too much in a Bonsai pot for the first few years untill it is 'tame'. Keep up with the tip pruning to develop the ramification, and try and take the tips when the shoot only has 3 or 4 leaves to keep the leaves small.

I would even out the branch angles as they are growing in a few different directions. The ones that stand out are the rounded ones in the upper tree, and I think it would benifit the design to flatten these out a bit from the trunk, and keep them more horizontal than downward.

Celtis/Hackberry I think look good in cream or bone coloured pots, and an oval one with a bit of a rim might suit nice.

Keep up the good work.

Best Regards

Tony

Thx for your advice all, sorry about the the late reply. I live in Rocklea, Brisbane and my house went completely under water bonsai's included . So i've been very busy cleaning up.

Hi all,
An up date on one of the first trees i collected. Buds started opening a few weeks ago which was much earlier then expected so i missed the ideal re pot time. I removed way more roots then i'd planned, i'v got a bad habit of that , but i'm pretty sure it will be OK, Celtis are pretty tuff. I was planning on re-potting it into another training pot but I couldn't resist potting into a bonsai pot. Pretty much all my trees are in training pots, I couldn't go another whole year without potting something into a bonsai pot. I used a 50:50 mix of searls potting mix and Diatomite (Kleen Sorb)

Managed to grow a sacrifice branch in the perfect spot down low so I'll continue to grow that untouched all year to get some taper happening. I've let the lowest LHS branch grow out to thicken it so it's in proportion to the others. When it back buds in spring I'll cut it back and begin working on it's ramification. I also plan on carving the top section of dead wood to blend it into the natural dead wood in the mid section of trunk, as well as the old dead root at soil level.( not sure of the best time to do this).

Any thoughts, good or bad, and advise would be greatly appreciated,
Cheers,
Sam

I would put it in a styro box to get the full effect of the sacrifice branch. I don't think it will go as well in a bonsai pot. I collected a couple of small ones at a job I looked at today at Toowong. Once you start looking you realise they are everywhere

I like the progress and the glass of red is a classy touch. I think it will develope OK in that pot as it is a bit oversized.

My theory is that it will develop ok in this pot, as bougy fan pointed out there is plenty of soil for it to grow in for another year. That my theory any way. There's only one way to find out.

MMMMMmmwine.......