Whirling eyes through shadow mise
Spinning dervish trails blood for flies
Shadow binds the maiden strong
What, oh what, could possibly go wrong?

Seeping Within
An Original Nonsense Poem by @creativetruth

#poem #poetry

In this post, I'll be sharing another tree that I recently trimmed, and take us down memory lane a bit with this tree's past history... before those memories disappear forever.

ID: 0004
Nickname: Xayide
Type: Curly Willow
Age: 4.5 years
Grown: cutting (local florist)
Last repotting: early summer 2017
Wired: early summer 2017

Above you can see my curly willow has once again reached out it's curly tentacles. It is ironic that it now resembles Xayide's hand-shaped castle from The Neverending Story; truly, a coincidental blessing from the story that inspired my name for this tree. This tree has a mind of its own. What twisted plans does it have in store for me? Am I truly controlling this tree's future? Is it controlling mine?

Below, you can see what this tree looked like last summer...

And then last winter, it looked like nearly everything had died, leaving only brittle, dry bones. In the story, Xayide was said to be an enchantress, who hollows out her victims of all memory of their former self, fueling her parasitic powers, until they become a hollow shell. This tree looked like a hollow shadow of its former glory.

After Winter I practically butchered this tree, eliminating more than I felt this tree deserved. The ugly business cost me those beautiful twisted branches and probably a few followers too. After removing all the dead parts, this is the core of all that remained. After the Artist had finished his work, The Nothing was given the rest.

Even the top branch had a thick crack running vertically more than half way though it, exactly where it splits off from were the top used to be. I was convinced it would soon crumble to pieces one day right before my eyes.

This Spring, magically of its own will, it brought forth new life from the emptiness within.

With stems so long, it was time for a trim.

And these are the final results...

I like to allow my bonsai trees to develop very slowly by forcing them to send growth energy as close to the old wood as possible, rather than allow them to continue into tall vines like a broom. This keeps the tree small, full of buds, and I think it also slowly thickens the base of the new and old branches a bit to improve the taper slightly.

Every place a leaf exists, a new stem filled with more leaves may emerge.

Usually the topmost leaves will produce the stem with the strongest amount of growth, making it longer than all the others. The tree tends to make the tallest stem into the new trunk, or the Central Leader which is the dominant stem or branch that tends to grow almost straight up from where it is.

These old cut marks from past winters have dried out already. Sap has calloused underneath the wound to seal its energy from escaping. Eventually the living wood around the wound will swell around it to make a donut shaped knot. On the right side branch you can see many small knots that have already formed, making the branch appear bumpy and wiggly, adding to the natural character of the Twisted Willow.

See, this is where the crack formed that I was most concerned about, beside where old removed trunk top used to be.

Yet, the mild winter's end hardly deterred this branch from setting forth new life. In some cases, such cuts are believed to improve the vigor of a tree. Notching is the technique of cutting past the cambium layer, believed to induce growth to buds below the cut. In my case, the buds above this notch did not receive that message. I'm glad!

Lastly, I wanted to show you something I watch out for on my trees. I'm going to call these type of buds "suckers". These are new buds which tend to form in thick clusters near areas that have been recently pruned. The tree produces them to help form new wood growth to heal over the damaged or diseased areas.

If I let them continue to grow, this area will continue to swell. It will swell so much, it will probably become a ball-shape, which in my mind looks very ugly on a tree. I prefer to see a nice long tapered tree shape getting thinner, rather than suddenly thicker, as it grows upward.

Somebody in the my neighborhood butchered their tree like this. They are going to end up with a lollipop on top. Very unnatural. If I was maintaining this broken tree, I would probably remove all the new branches except for two to ensure it forms a clear dominant branch and a secondary branch that blends into the trunk.

Any time I find a cluster of stems, I always reduce them in number, so in this case, I scraped off all except for one. Using a fingernail, it was fairly easy to do.

So by reducing the number of clustered stems to no more than one stem at any single point along the branch, I can maintain the current tapered shape of this branch. Perhaps that deep notch has also played a role in narrowing the tip of the branch, improving the taper. This photo below is proof to validate the effectiveness of these techniques in my design.

In this spirit of this post, I'll take a moment to say that ever since I first started posting here as @creativetruth, I have found it is very helpful to index my posts here on the steem blockchain, including links to my old posts, and re-reading them from time to time. It gives me an opportunity to review the life of the tree over the past (as well as my own life), the work that has been done on the tree, and what my original plans were and how my strategy may have changed.

You too can read more about this tree in my past posts:

• Trimming the Curly Willow in Winter
• Sometimes you have to Roll the Dice and see what happens
• Twisted Xayide casts a spell to beguile your interest

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Photos in this post are all #originalworks by @creativetruth.

Find me on discord and chat with other tree growers, bonsai enthusiasts, and gardeners. We have quite a few accredited experts filling out our ranks, and a helpful Spanish-speaking community.

#teambonsai

No memberships. Love trees. Make friends. Grow together.

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Bonus Photo

Since my mother really enjoys roses, I had to stop and admire the best of the bunch growing in her part of the yard this past Mother's Day.

We're getting many new roses blooming every day now.

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What did you think? Did you enjoy this post?

Thank you for checking it out. I really enjoy sharing my experiences with my friends here.