Petra26 wrote:wow, amazing... but I have question relating to the bottom portion...
when you chop it, are you suppose to chop it diagonally? cause the walsai I have was just chopped horizontally... if so, why? (I have a tendency to like to know the why of things)
also, how did you get the top chopped part to grow? I thought the new growth just grows around the top chopped part. mine just has a bunch of new growth around top chopped flat part, like a flat coffee table in the middle with branches growing up around it. in fact, it looks quite bad, just a flat top in the middle of the tree
how did you get from the top picture to the bottom picture where the new growth grew back in from the chopped area and make it look like part of the tree? and not just some skinny stick sticking out of the top?
[Rant][The very short answer is that malsai are mass produced and sold as soon as they have a root system to support them without regard to artistic styling any further than wiring a juniper cutting to look like a '7' Or the ever popular radish..er ginseng ficus. Then making everything else either a generic 'broom style' {no style} or insure that it looks like a 'digital 5' Because it is going to be sold to people who know no better in the west and that is what westerners think bonsai look like. [And we buy tons of absolute junk with tiny pagodas.][/Rant
..Malsai
]
{The longer answer about why I did it the way I did it follows.}
Well, It depends on what your trying to do. If you wanted a broom style bonsai it would actually be proper to do a slightly 'V' shaped chop so that all of your buds aren't originating from the same point. Such as in a flat chop [IE: Your tabletop, That will eventually cause the trunk to swell at that spot and then you have reverse taper.]
If you make an angle cut it by definition causes some degree of taper.
I chopped at an angle because I wanted to induce some taper [Making the trunk gradually get more narrow as it gets to the top.]
Even when cutting at an angle the new growth that occurs is still [primarily] around the chop, But also some budding further down the trunk which I [mostly] rubbed off.
All of this depends on the species, IE: Ficus b backbud well, Not that I needed it.
Due to the angled approach of the chop, Some of the new growth is actually a bit below the wound. I chose a bud from the bottom of the wound and wired it so that it grew directly up across it.
This eventually fattened up a bit and made for a nice gradual transition between the old/newgrowth. There were two more chops that I made above the main one. Essentially, They are where the trunk curves. the last one was more pruning than 'trunk chop' at the time it happened.
The red are the other two chops, The branch in the yellow is the branch that remained when I chopped the top off of it.
[img]https://img71.imageshack.us/img71/3416/chloevirthgsq5.jpg[/img]
It is important to notice here that I allready knew what the front of my tree was going to be and I chopped it at such an angle that the highest point [of the old trunk] was facing directly forward. Meaning also that the wound is facing the rear.
A little thinking ahead in bonsai really pays dividends.
I hope this helps a bit, But If not.... Just ask.
ynot
