guesskoenig

I have a very small chinese elm with nicely reduce leaves. It is already growing at a slight lean which I want to maintain. I am repotting it to get it out of it's nursery planter and I was wondering if there is anything I can do to help it keep growing in this style, as well as possible develop anything else to accent this style. As you can see in the picture it has already been shaped somewhat into the broom style but I am not sure this would look good on a lean.

Also, there is a nice large scar from where the previous owner cut off what was at the time the leader to shape it into broom style and didn't pay any mind as to maintaining the cut. I've been told it might be a good start to a shari or hollow trunk on the tree and was wondering about any input on that idea as well as anything I should be doing at the moment if that's what I decide to do with it.

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Wm Tom Davis

Thats a nice starter elm, and I like elms that are slanted a tad. The trunk could use some flare at its base and you have a lot of nice branches to work with. Elms are pretty hardy trees, so if you are going to repot, do so quickly so that it has some time before winter sets-in. Elms can do well indoors in a very sunny south easterly window.
How is the nebari at the base? Have you decided on a style and which side is to be the front? The size looks to be a good start for a shohin.
For now, if it were my tree, I'd be looking at how I could improve the trunk, and repotting is the best place to start. This will be a nice project for a few years. Good luck with it... and keep us posted as to its progress.

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~ Tom

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treebeard55

Sorry, Koenig, but your picture is too small and dark for me to be able to see much detail.

For now I would leave it alone. Next spring I'd put it into a wider but shallower container; you want to prune off any roots directly under the trunk as you do. This will encourage development of the nebari.

Using an obtrusive scar in your design is a creative, and for me, very satisfying way to deal with it. So if you want use that old pruning scar as the starting point for a hollow trunk, I say go for it!

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Treebeard 55
Steve Moore
http://hoosierbonsai.blogspot.com

The most important bonsai tool is your brain.

centaura

I think I will disagree with the hollow trunk/shari idea - only because your trunk is currently thin enough that if you smooth over the scar, it will close over in a couple of years. To maintain a shari, you'll have to continually re-wound the tree to keep the callous from sealing over. Conversely - if you were to smooth over the scar area you should get closure of it fairly quickly.

At this point your first job is to find the front of the tree, and then start looking at your branch structure. You have quite a few branches to choose from - to stop the tree from being a broom you need to remove the branches that you don't want right now. I can't see that well into the canopy to give you suggestions for branches, but next spring you can be quite drastic in cutting extra ones off. The tree will backbud all over once trimmed, so even if you don't have a branch in a good position right now you have a good chance of getting a bud to sprout somewhere good.

-Centaura