Pruning a Messy Shrub into an Elegant Tree [Bonsai]

This is the second tree in my winter bonsai pruning series. This tree is an unknown variety that grows in bush form. You can see what it looks like when it has a full spread of colorful leaves in this this post Burst of Colors.

The first tree I pruned was Chinese Elm, and I gave an in-depth play-by-play description of the reasons for why I pruned every branch the way I did. You can read about that in my post Pruning Chinese Elm Start to Finish

In this post I won't be going to that full depth, but you'll be able to see the before and after photos, and my brief analysis on anything particularity challenging about this tree I may have noticed.

Most of my followers already know this, but if you are reading one of my posts for the first time, I want you to know I am not a professional or expert bonsai artist. I do this as a hobby, and mostly follow my own rules. I read some books about bonsai, and do some research, and interact with other experts, but I enjoy the freedom to express my artform in a way that is pleasing to me. With that said, I welcome you to enjoy what I share. Criticism and feedback is always welcome in the comments. I don't bite.

This is going to be my before photo.

It was @daniellozada, another bonsai artist here on steemit you should follow, who made a wise comment to me that I appreciated. He told me to put my trees in front of a solid black background with good lighting to show a better silhouette of the tree branches. I do not have a nice studio backdrop like he does, so I'll settle for this green bin for now.

Apologies for the weird camera angle. It was starting to rain out. There was a good reason for the position of the camera though. I was trying to pick an angle to show the best separation between branches, rather than a straight on shot that would show branches hidden behind other ones.

Using photo editing, I painted in black the areas of the tree that was still alive, and would become the new tree silhouette. Areas marked in fuchsia are the approximate marks I would make cuts at. In most places, I was able to cut off the dead wood back to a living bud, so you can expect new leaves and branches to grow from the ends of all the cuts. This helps the design of the tree when the bud becomes a new branch, and the dead branch that previously extended beyond that bud tends to hold the same direction line. The dead branch is often a distraction from the shape, where the living wood has changed its growth pattern into a new direction angle.

This is also a growing strategy. Every place a branch is cut, the hormones that would have fed all the top buds beyond the cut will now be refocused towards the buds at the new end of the branch. In a few places I chose to cut back long whipping branches to a shorter length to maximize this effect of focusing the growth into areas I want new leaves and branches.

All of these cuts can be termed more as "clean-up" on the tree, since none of the living branches were removed.

Here are the final results.

I really like the way this one turned out. Sorry to those of you who like bushy trees. I like trees with a nice trunk you can see, with an interesting skeleton to it. I can already see more movement angles happening now that the chaff and stubs are all gone. Just by removing old cut stubs, to leave the main branches with a smooth edge, it really softens the look of the tree.

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Due to recent snowy weather conditions in our area, I won't be working on my rock landscape project this week like I promised. My bonsai meeting to work on this has been postponed a few weeks. Everybody in our little bonsai club is worried about protecting their precious bonsai trees from the elements. Cold snaps like this can sometimes harm a tree in a matter of hours, or instantly if a dangerous storm branch crashes into your yard. Every tall mature tree in your yard is a potential hazard when the wind, ice, and flooding rain arrives.

Thanks for viewing my post. All of these photos are original from my own collection. I will be posting more similar posts to this one this week. Follow me a bit longer, and you'll be able to find my winter pruning work on all of my trees.

Have a wonderful day!