Sage's Bonsai : Siberian Elm # 3 Urban Yamadori (large)

Siberian Elm #3

March 9, 2019:

Last year, I had contacted a local plumbing supply about removing some invasive Siberian Elms. I had dug three out (one of which survived). There were, of coarse, more to choose from. In mid-summer, I went back and hard pruned some that where still in the ground to work on establishing some potential new leader growth. I had sealed the cuts with cut paste. Then weeks later, I noticed a that the weeds in the area had been cleaned up, and the big elm that I did not cut back was cut back and left...I wondered if they had seen the others, and decided to give me an opportunity to collect it as well. That tree is the one that I collected today.

Here it is with my root saw for size scale. It appeared to be a multi-trunk. I would later discover that it was one trunk.

The soil was really sandy and rocky, so the digging was easy. I hit some clay about 18" down. At that point I began to undercut it with my pickaxe. I had only severed some horizontal roots, so I began to fear a hefty tap root.

Soon after taking the image above, I was able to get the tree rocking and noticed that the tap root was not what I had feared. Especially, considering that the main trunk that had been cut back years ago was as wide as my hand. After isolating the root I was able to give it a few wacks from each side with my hatchet. It came up easier than I thought it would. There were some feeder roots and I am hopeful about the trees survival.

Below is the tree in the recycling bin ready for its 3 block ride home.

The massive hole with the saw for scale. Time to fill it in and get this tree home.

Here the saw line can be seen where I cleaned up some of the axe chopped root.

Below you can see the size of this trunk, however, the horrible reverse taper issue that I will have to face at some point is also quite evident.

There is a lot of scraggly growth from last year after they had cut it back. It was hard to see what my options were so I began methodically cutting back the branches that were crossing, growing in branch crotches, or toward another trunk.

Here is the original cut, the edges are in bad shape and could be rotting as part of it dying back over the past few years. Looks about 5" in diameter.

Below is the tree after I had thinned it out a bit. You can see that the tree had thrown out suckers after the big cut and now they were about five of them of about the same thickness that had been pruned back by the plumbers to about the same height. One of them that came from the main trunk had fused with a branch that had grown up into it.

The fused branch is in the back of this image. At least now I was able to begin to make sense of the tree's options...non that seemed too promising. I started thinking, maybe a raft style, or cutting that main trunk off. With really two possible single trunk lines on opposing sides, I could not decide to go with one or the other. It was unclear which would make the most sense to keep after cutting the trunk, to establish a trunk-line. I decided that this would be a decision for the future.

One of these two branches had to be cut back. I ended up cutting the one on the right side of this image, to just about where the fissured bark ends.

I ended up reducing another trunk or two, deciding to not do really heavy work, since the year old cuts were already closed off and I did not know how the tree will respond. Also, I did not bare-root the tree. I decided to leave some of the clay soil around the base. Well, at least the soil that did not get knocked off as I worked the tree. My hope is that there are some fine roots in there to help the tree recover and to later grow into the better substrate that I placed in the box.

In the following two images, the merged trunk can be seen coming toward the camera.

In this next image the branch on the left, I considered removing the upper part of the forked branch to create a large tapering branch.

It sit pretty nicely in this box that I had built last year. Anyway, it was the biggest container I had aside from the recycling bin. To encourage root growth I sprinkled a layer of shredded sphagnam moss and added some mycorrhizal fungi spores that I picked this year to help with establishing collected and repotted trees.

Also, note the roots where high in the box on this side and above the soil line.

I filled in the crevasses with soil and then stapled some metal wire mesh on the box to help mound the soil there higher to cover some of the high roots.

This side had many of the shoots that I had to thin out. There was an especially pesky cluster of close growing branches that where an inch or so in diameter. In this image, which will most likely not be the front, the prominent inverse taper can be seen.

This side is a bit more promising, with some movement as well as options to consider. Although that merged trunk is crazy.

I sealed off the large cuts, although all the major cuts in the image above were made last summer, aside from the one on the left. I added more of the mycorrhizal fungi spores on top and watered it with superthrive to hopefully help with the transplant shock.

By not cutting back hard and keeping some native soil, along with the spores and superthrive vitamin B supplement, I hope this tree will pull through.

Future considerations:

See how the tree responds and make decision as to go for more of a clump, or to pick a side and create one main trunk. Either way, there will be some carving and hollowing of the trunk. It would probably be a good idea to work on the roots, after seeing what happens in the next year or two in the box. Perhaps air-layer it if the taper issue can not be corrected with carving. Also, this tree was collected a tad on the early side, as the day temp was only about 40 today and evenings may drop below freezing this next week.

Mid-may 2019

Here it is after letting it grow freely. I did remove some redundant shoots and shoots growing out of branch crotches. Below you could see one of the larger wounds where the multitude of buds pushed away the cut paste. I thinned this out and just left three or four shoots growing.

Here is the tree after I had let it grow all summer. I took it to the Koi and Bonsai show to trim up and get some feedback on.

Sept 15th, 2019

I got busy carving the main previous chop and the larger chops I had made when I collected it. I tried to not carve away too much live wood veins. I thought I had done a good job considering it was my first go with the die-grinder.

Before