centaura

I haven't posted a tree in a while, so I figured that I could put one up today. I've been really bad at not taking archive shots of things this year, and I want to work on fixing that.

Last night I did some wiring and light trimming on a chinese elm that had lost its leaves (its natural fall reaction, it will be releafed out by Jan.) So I took some shots of it. Its a bit light on the left hand side and in the canopy - it had some thick, straight branches that I trimmed back so that I can get some taper in them. Especially on the upper left hand side - there were two branches that were really too thick for that high a placement in the canopy, so I trimmed them back to get some new, younger growth. Here's a front shot, a side shot and a shot of how the canopy is developing from the top.

-Centaura

Attached Images

	chinelmfront.jpg (45.1 KB, 48 views)
	chinelmside.jpg (45.0 KB, 35 views)
	chinelmcanopy.jpg (69.4 KB, 33 views)

centaura

And then there's the obligatory "scale" shot. Here's the tree with a Coke can for scale.

-Centaura

Attached Images

chineelmscale.jpg (44.5 KB, 26 views)

M.B.

Very nice movement. Thank you for the "obligitory" soda can shot. I always wonder what size many trees are if there are no photos with something to help show the scale.
Mary B.

centaura

Thank you, I like and dislike looking at photos of my trees. On one hand, they're good for pointing out design flaws that I need to look at - like on this tree, I had debated shortening it when I was pruning it, and now looking at the photo I think I really need to. But on the other hand, its hard to show the depth of trees, so what looks like a nice, full tree in person looks so skimpy in a photo. That's why I did the shot of the canopy, to show some of the depth a little. It'll help when I can get some new growth on the left hand side. The branches there had to go, they were too thick for too much of their length.

I like to try to put in a size reference when dealing with small trees, in part to show off how small they are. Its hard to find something that's universally known for size - but pop cans are fairly ubiquitous. The real hard one is when folks use their national currency as a size reference, and I collect enough coins to know how different coin sizes vary from country to country!

-Centaura

T.S.Wheeler

I love it! And I agree; good movement. This may sound stupid, but I like how the tree is in an appropriately sized pot (as opposed to a little tree in a big pot, as we so often see)--and I suppose that is because the tree is on the more 'finished' side of the spectrum. Did you start this one from the beginning? How long have you had it in training?

Travis

centaura

I got the tree about three years ago, someone had made the original trunk chop (the point at which the first branch comes off), and I've done the branch work from there. At this stage it definitely needs to be in a small pot, as the I want to keep the growth tight and small. If I were to put him in a bigger pot at this stage, all his growth would be out of proportion to his size - chinese elms can put on some heavy growth if allowed to.

This will probably not be its final pot, but its a good training pot for now. Its near enough to a "finished" stage that I'm thinking of showing it with a couple other shohins in some non-judged shows next year. There's a spring show that I work that has a trees-in-training emphasis that I was thinking of putting a three tree shohin display together for. I won't put him in a judged show for a few more years, he needs more ramification before I can do that. But a lot of that depends on how much the left side grows this winter. I should have enough fullness there by next May that I can bring him out.

-Centaura