Season’s Greetings!

The holidays are upon us and I’ve been busy with a few new trees, two of them to show you today…so let this be my Christmas card to you, as I most likely will not do another post until the new year. The first tree up is a ponderosa pine I acquired two or three years ago that was potted in turface or oil dry and in a very nice glazed white pot that was totally inappropriate for the tree. First order of business was to change the soil to pumice, then let the tree gain strength with a good regimen of organic fertilizer. That also gave me time to study the tree and I recently styled it for the first time; here is the result:

The tree was tall and gangly–sorry for the lack of a before photo. I was able to reduce its height with a single guy wire anchored to the lower trunk with a wood screw. A detail of the foliage:

A little closer:

Now I’m on the lookout for a pot to put it in this spring…Next I have for you a rock planting I put together earlier this fall. I was given the rock as partial payment for work done for a client and two of the trees were cuttings I made several years back, using a technique of wiring the extension growth for a growing season before removing it to make the cutting. The result is a head start on giving the tree good movement in the lower trunk. Here is the result:

The height is 14″ from the base of the rock to the top of the upper tree; 17″ from the tree on the left to the tree on the right…you can see some color difference between the two bottom trees and the tree at the top. I think the top tree is kishu and the lower ones are itoigawa. The lower two are the ones I mentioned using the pre-wiring technique with the cuttings. it isn’t a large planting, but boy is it heavy! I can’t imagine how heavy some of Kimura’s rock plantings must be, as I recall noting their size when I visited his garden back in February of 2014. A detail of the tree on the left:

I did some light thinning prior to planting so you could see the trunk movement better, but I can see a little more work needs to be done yet; this tree received a complete wiring two years ago, so the trunk and branches are pretty much where I want them to be. And now, the second tree on the right:

I removed a very straight sacrifice branch on this tree prior to planting and will wire it when the tree has established more roots in its rocky new home…I intend to bring the upper portion of the tree to the left, to make it seem more as though it grew from seed in the rock. And the little guy at the top:

I going to wrap this up as my internet is very bad right now…wishing you the best for the holidays and a Happy New Year!