3 trees from nursery today

[maroun.c]

Looking at these 3 trees in nursery today, mostly keen on the olive but appreciate ur thoughts before I pick up.

Olive
Nice base and acceptable taper. Bit too high for my taste can chop at mid trunk and redevelop or can cut at base and regrow completely. I'm hoping the large base will have a bit more under soil. Trunk has some nice movement up to its third but believe there is a graft where it meets the base


Cedrus libani
Should be able to get a nicer older one as they are local. This one just has many branches and is straight so though maybe a formal upright and chopping it mid trunk?



And a juniper. Not sure why it caught my eyes but has a good trunk with multiple long branches to work with

 

[maroun.c]

Cleaned up the olive pot a bit and I can see branches emerging away from the trunk so believe that base goes wider under the soil. Also there are few roots at the surface I can develop into surface roots

 

[LanceMac10]

Two species that will thrive in your climate! Lebanese Cedar will work great,(duh) and the Olive as well!


Juniper maybe not so much, I imagine it might have problems with mites down the road.....

Good luck!

 

[BrianBay9]

I'd go for the olive, and keep only the first inch above that gnarly base.

 

[Shibui]

Olive chop is possible but allow many years to develop a good bonsai from it.
Cedar looks good. Plenty of branches is good. Easy to cut some off than to grow from scratch. Formal upright style is not easy to do well.
Not sure I would bother with that juniper.

 

[maroun.c]

Thanks for all replies. I already picked up the olive this morning, will wait to see if I can get couple thicker trunk cedars to work on instead if i cant find will get this one.
For the olive I'm not sure I'll chop at the base or leave part of the trunk as there is a clear difference in the thick base and trunk.steucture sonassuming graft.
Donu suggest leaving 1_2 inch of the trunk above the base or just at the base of the trunk ie at red or yellow mark ?

 

[Shibui]

Where to cut will depend on what shaped tree you want to make from it.
Some olive bonsai are just a mass of relatively thin new shoots growing straight from the swollen lignotuber - cut low
I prefer a tree to have a trunk. I would cut a bit higher, maybe even above your red line, wait for the new shoots to sprout then build a new apex and branches from those - long term project.
You already know I like to see dead wood on olives, especially those that have been cut down. I think dead wood gives context to the reduced trunk. Large flat scars are just ugly IMHO

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

I like the yellow line as location to prune to. The top can be rooted as a cutting.

 

[maroun.c]

Choices choices. Guess I'll go with both.
I will cut the trunk higher than my red line maybe 2-3 inches higher, make some jin of the top of the trunk going a bit down and carve it. Will give it few years to form a canopy and see how it looks. At same time I will play with the shoots on the fat base and tey to shape it like Adairs olive bonsais he posted a while back. In 2-3 years I'll decide on what I like most and either cleanup the lower branches or cut the top part which will.cost me.couple years more for scars to heal as well I guess.
Does this sound like a viable plan or is it wrong to try to make 2 designs now and decide later on which to go with.
I.also have many other olives I'm working on so might also be a good idea to have a few different designs. Those other ones were mostly chopped to the base and in played with jin and shari on a couple.
Should i repot into bonsai soil and pot so i can uncover what's under the soil now or just chop the too part as discussed and leave it to recover till next year and repot it next summer?

 

[BrianBay9]

I would repot first, have a look at the roots and get it in good substrate. If the roots are strong go for the chop. If they are problematic, let it recover before the chop.

 

[maroun.c]

Repoted yesterday,
A bit of a bummer as I was expecting an even much thicker trunk looking at all the shoots surrounding the tree, turned out most were coming from the roots. Still trunk base is around 6-7 inch at its widest so believe it's got potential.
Roots looked great for the soil it's in.
Will start a dedicated thread for this tree to get guidance forward