nicolás
Seedling
Hi!
I’m new to this forum and to bonsai in general. I hope to learn much from this forum! I’ve had a little olive tree bonsai for nearly three years and a handful of Delonix Regia and Jacaranda Mimosifolia still growing from seeds, but since the pandemic I’ve been reading and watching lots of videos (certainly therapeutic). Since my trees are still too young I feel like getting my hands a bit dirtier using stock from nurseries and trees that are certainly ready for pruning and training.
I’ve only just begun with my first material bought from a nursery. I decided on a Boulevard Cypress that I liked because of the height, number of branches and the size of the trunk. Basically good material to practice making decisions, pruning and general style. This is a photo before pruning:
I decided not to go too crazy in my first take, respecting the general formal upright shape of the tree, trying just to separate the branches, balancing them, and also trying to decide on what the front is going to be. Stopped wiring in the middle.
I liked this as the front.
After sleeping on it, observing it again and feeling somewhat unsatisfied with my decisions, I started to feel uncomfortable with its height (nearly 3 feet). I decided to shorten the tree top. First I visualized it:
Then I just did it.
I feel like the apex is unsolved, but at least I like the general size and distribution a bit more, it makes the trunk seem thicker now that it is shorter.
I don’t know what to do now. Should I prune the middle branches a bit more, separating the base branches from the top branches? Should I just leave it alone for a year now, see what happens?
I like the trunk but I don’t like that there are four branches at the same height:
Should I get rid of one of them? If so, which one? (The detailed photo has the same angle as the photo above it, looking towards the chosen front). I don’t think the trunk needs to thicken quickly, so I am not interested in keeping one as a sacrificial branch.
Also, here is the back. Do you think this has more potential to be the front?
And the trunk seen from the back:
View from overhead (lower part of the photo is the chosen front):
Thank you so much for any advice you might provide and sorry for the long post.
Greetings from Costa Rica.
I’m new to this forum and to bonsai in general. I hope to learn much from this forum! I’ve had a little olive tree bonsai for nearly three years and a handful of Delonix Regia and Jacaranda Mimosifolia still growing from seeds, but since the pandemic I’ve been reading and watching lots of videos (certainly therapeutic). Since my trees are still too young I feel like getting my hands a bit dirtier using stock from nurseries and trees that are certainly ready for pruning and training.
I’ve only just begun with my first material bought from a nursery. I decided on a Boulevard Cypress that I liked because of the height, number of branches and the size of the trunk. Basically good material to practice making decisions, pruning and general style. This is a photo before pruning:
I decided not to go too crazy in my first take, respecting the general formal upright shape of the tree, trying just to separate the branches, balancing them, and also trying to decide on what the front is going to be. Stopped wiring in the middle.
I liked this as the front.
After sleeping on it, observing it again and feeling somewhat unsatisfied with my decisions, I started to feel uncomfortable with its height (nearly 3 feet). I decided to shorten the tree top. First I visualized it:
Then I just did it.
I feel like the apex is unsolved, but at least I like the general size and distribution a bit more, it makes the trunk seem thicker now that it is shorter.
I don’t know what to do now. Should I prune the middle branches a bit more, separating the base branches from the top branches? Should I just leave it alone for a year now, see what happens?
I like the trunk but I don’t like that there are four branches at the same height:
Should I get rid of one of them? If so, which one? (The detailed photo has the same angle as the photo above it, looking towards the chosen front). I don’t think the trunk needs to thicken quickly, so I am not interested in keeping one as a sacrificial branch.
Also, here is the back. Do you think this has more potential to be the front?
And the trunk seen from the back:
View from overhead (lower part of the photo is the chosen front):
Thank you so much for any advice you might provide and sorry for the long post.
Greetings from Costa Rica.
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