Even thoug the driftwood was shortened this tree still required a lot of work.  It has been pretty much neglected all year and was showing that pretty clearly.  So my first action was to select the branches and get this tree wired out.

As you can see, long leggy branches with no structure.  It is trying to revert back into a shrub.  The long branches take away from the nice trunk of the tree and make it look small. 

After just a short time the tree now looks like a tree.  The branches are shorter  and taper up the tree.  Additionally the driftwood will be the top of this tree.  Once the bottom fills in and has nice pads for branches the color contrast will be great.  The tree is potted incorrectly in the pot and will have to be turned to this front during the winter.  This tree is less than a year away from being completed.

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Well it has been a long time since I’ve worked on my trees, and even longer since my last post. What a crazy year it has been. I can’t believe we are already well into the holiday season. although it is a really good time for me to get caught up and prepare for a busy bonsai time in the coming months.

This weekend I spent some time with Mike Rogers who helped me with a couple of my trees. One was a podocarpus that I had bought from him last year. During the year due to a watering issue I lost the growth on the top of the tree, but left me with tons of deadwood. The problem however was that the deadwood was too long and needed to be reduced. Mike has developed a method to address that.

As you can see there is a long stright section that is rather boring and doesn’t add any interest. I fthe section couldn’t be removed the great spread near the top would have to be removed because the overall tree would be to tall.

Mike’s solution is to cut the section off and drill a 1/2″ hole into the base of the driftwood.  The other end is carved into a peg that slides into the hole. 

The hole is filled with wood glue and the section is held in place for 30 minutes

After the glue dries and the wood is carved you can’t even tell the 4 inch section was even there.  Amazing stuff!

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