AusBonsai

Hi just a quick post to get some feedback on this chinese elm I have trained over the past 18 months from stock brought at terry hills

Any thoughts welcome

Chris

Hi to all,

Thought I might post what I have since done to this elm which was one of my 1st trees from when I got back into bonsai about 2.5 years ago.

I have often wondered what I should do about the very little taper in the first section of this trunk line so I came up with a theory on developing both the trunks taper and the roots.

What I have done is bought 3 small elms with trunks about 8mm round and cut them into a pointed wedge in the hope of grafting them into a recipricating wedge shape at the base of the tree. The hope is that the tree can sustain its growth above with the vertival sections of trunk I havent touched and the new wedges can graft to the tree and thicken the base. Its a slightly altered version of the whip grafts that pup performed on a trident?

The wedges were then locked into place with a budding tape to be forced to grow together with the existing trunkline. My fingers are crossed.

Please let me know your thoughts and any similar experiments that may have resulted in sucess or failure.

Cheers

Squizz

Hope it works out for you Squizz, i would have waited till next spring and done the grafts before budburst , I say this because i have tried several times to do this on my Elm during the growing season with zero success. Nice progress anyhow

Here is the elm a year or so on. Only one of the trunk grafts took. But it has had the desired effect. See the picture below.


Will try a few more I think

Squizz

Hi Squizzy,
the progression you have made with your chinese elm is impressive and inspiring.
I am just starting out with my chinese elm, also bought it stock at terry hills and it is 5 years old.
Check out my photo, and please let me know of any pointers or things I can do to promote growth on my chinese elm.