At 03:40 PM 8/26/03 +0400, JOEL MCCORMICK wrote:
I have read in a bonsai book that hitting the trunk of a pine with a
hammer, softly will cause cell damage and as the tree repairs this damage
the diameter of the trunk is increased. The book continued to say that one
should only do one side of a tree at a time.

I am interested in if the hitting the trunk with a hammer really works. I
have a Japanese Black Pine that I am growing in the ground. I have about 2
1/2 inch trunk maybe 3. I have good sacrificial branches all the way down
to the ground. I have a good curve in the trunk and I have a new top
picked out. The problem is that through out the trunk I have very little
taper. This spring I will cut it back from 5 foot to 2 foot. My problem is
I have little taper from zero to 18 inches then the taper of the new top.
I plan on the finished plant being around 28 - 32 inches so I may not even
need to be concerned at this time.

Joe

Cambium wounding does have its place in correcting faults, but this is not
one of them. First of all, I would never use the hammer method, it is much
too dangerous. Making small vertical cuts is my preferred method, but this
is for correcting small areas of reverse taper or getting a little bit of
swelling in the nebari on a small plant.

A plant your size needs major work to achieve taper. You say you have
sacrifice branches all the way to the ground, that is the proper and
fastest way to achieve taper, but it is still going to take several, if not
many, years. I use low sacrifices like this to gain caliper and taper.
Often the sacrifice is several times larger than the 'tree', to give you
some idea of the scale of work that you need. While doing this, leave it in
the ground or use large training pots, the faster the sacrifice grows the
better.

You can cut down the 'tree' and begin working the apex area and the other
branches. Identify the trunk area that already has the right caliper for
that height. You should not grow sacrifices higher than this, indeed, above
that point you will want to _diminish_ growth. Sacrifices below that point
will help you achieve taper, but for a trunk this large, probably a single
sacrifice in the base section is all you will need. However, keep all the
other low branches alive for possible final branch selection and/or future
sacrifices. It is amazing how your vision of a tree can change over the
course of the years.


Brent in Northern California
Evergreen Gardenworks USDA Zone 8 Sunset Zone 14

http://www.EvergreenGardenworks.com

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