Bald Cypress II
This tree started as a seedling, the earliest picture that I have of it is from February 2013 and it looks to be a couple of years old at the time. It is really not much to look at, but I had plans to make it a cool twin trunk.
It got a repot also in that same month. I did not take too many pictures of the process, but I did manage to capture a few. It was repotted into one of my favorite items that I like to use for training pots, a Dollar Tree oil drain pan.
Two months later, April 2013, it came out nicely.
I left it alone for the remainder of the year, this is what it looked like in October of 2013. Note how quickly the second trunk developed and also how much the base has thickened.
I don't have many photos from 2014, only one. Here she is sitting on the bench fixing to get worked on.
Skip ahead to 2016 as I did not take any pictures the previous year. The trunk and base really thickened up from being grown with the roots submerged in water from March through November.
It had not been repotted since 2013, so it was time to get it into some new soil and take a look at what the roots were doing. Here is how it went:
By April, I started seeing a few buds and it looks like one is in the right place.
By July, it had a good amount of growth and the new leader for the chopped trunk had started to thicken. Unfortunately, the unchopped trunk did not come out and is dead. So, no more twin trunk style, I will have to come up with another plan. I don't know why the other trunk did not survive, other me than letting the other one grow so strongly that the tree decided it did not need a second trunk and aborted it.
February 2017 brought another repot. It did not really need it, but I wanted to see how many roots it made in one year, the results were quite impressive. I also decided that since the other trunk had died that I would strip the bark from it and create a jin. I may eventually shorten it (the jin) but for now I am just gonna leave it like it is and later shape it more to go with the style. One note on making jins, it is a lot easier to strip the bark off when it is green. This was bone dry and had to be ground off.
I am not gonna go into too much detail on the repot, but here are a few pictures of how many roots grew in one year.
For creating the jin, I used my Dremel tool with the various implements that come with it when you purchase it. It took for ever! Before doing this again I think I will research and find a better tool for that job. After putting a little lime sulphur on the bare wood, I wired out a few of the branches to start building some structure.
I find that when you are trying to come up with a design for a tree that a sketch is often a good way to develop a plan. This way you can add or subtract foliage, branches, etc. until you find an image that you find pleasing. I did several of this tree:
By June of 2017 it had grown out enough to do some additional wiring and carve the top chop so that it would blend with the new leader.
It grew really fast and some of the wire was already starting to cut in by late July. Here are some random shots of the wire removal, etc.
In April 2018, the tree got some more work. Old wires were removed, new wire was added, the top was cleaned up, and the apex was finally wired out. It has come a long way and I think that it is shaping up really nice. I am still on the fence about shortening the jin and, also, removing a couple of the lower branches.
Finished, For Now
I was playing around with the camera and backdrops in May and got a few shots of the tree. These things grow fast, look at all of the new branches! It will soon be time to wire it again.
Some more pictures from June 2018. Notice how much the apex branches that were selected earlier have thickened up. I can't think of another tree that grows as fast as a bald cypress.
By the end of July, 2018, the apex had thrown out a lot growth so it was time to thin it out. You have to keep the apex in check or the branches that you want to keep thin will really thicken up and the trunk will develop reverse taper.
In October of 2018, my club, the Azalea City Bonsai Society, had its fall show at the West Mobile Public Library, for highlights, click here. This lady got a kitchen pass and a day out, but not before she got the spa treatment a the Heart of Dixie Bonsai Spa. She go her pot scrubbed and oiled and a hair cut along with some additional wiring to make her more presentable. Here she is:
Here are some nude photos from January 2019. I think that I am starting to get some decent ramification on her. I cleaned up the jin and shortened it some, I may get shortened a little more, it just depends on how it looks with foliage.
