Harvesting bonsai material from a yew. Questions?

[Kodama]

Inspiring thread...thank you for sharing your progress and updates!

 

[Javaman4373]

Yew air layer today. This yew suffered some frost damage on the highest branches with a hard frost this past May 18th. New growth was killed and over a period of time, the top most branches showed off color needles and a scrape of the bark showed they were dying back. So I made them into dead wood. I have a question about the carving I have been doing on this yew. The revealed heart wood has an attractive red color and grain, which I am inclined to keep, rather than convert it to a typical bleached out dead wood. I wonder what you Bonsai Nuts feel about treating dead wood this way.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Good job!

Hmm…. Likely ok, Dan Robinson uses a marine wood preserver epoxy product instead of lime sulphur. Personally I like the idea.

Yet I’d consider extending of the deadwood created so far… perhaps think about radical veins and big woodpecker like holes to break up the large expanse of smooth bark. Check out some examples on this link…

cheers
DSD sends

 

[Javaman4373]

Here is what it looks like with more of the sap wood removed revealing the reddish heart wood. There is a dead branch hole in the dead leftward branch facing to the right not visible in these photos.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Love what you are doing with this!

As a reformed carver, it was just a suggestion…. that doesn’t have to be taken at all. Here’s a bit of a stream of consciousness…

The tree appears the perfect material to create a vein(s) traveling a bit sinuously extending from the present cut all the way down… (maybe on both sides, but less on the back)… closer to the surface narrowing to a couple inches above the media…. With perhaps some pecker marks… randomly… and tapering the top of the knob on the left. Would take a bit of planning.

(Dan says his trees have shown they can withstand a lot more carving than one can think.)

Just food for thought!

cheers
DSD sends

 

[leatherback]

I feel the deadwood is too smooth for me. Have you considered showing more structure in the deadwood and work more with pulling fibres?

 

[Javaman4373]

I feel the deadwood is too smooth for me. Have you considered showing more structure in the deadwood and work more with pulling fibres?

I agree the deadwood may not be a good reflection of what you would see in nature. Although here is the remains of a companion yew to the donor of this air layer that died after deer defoliated it one winter years ago. In hindsight, I should not have dug out this yew, even though it was completely defoliated by the browsiing deer, because I now think it would have lived. These yews have trunks and branches that are smooth with gentle curves. So perhaps the potted yew could be styled more like a sculpture than a replica of nature. Takes some thought.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

I feel the deadwood is too smooth for me. Have you considered showing more structure in the deadwood and work more with pulling fibres?

Hmm, yep…. thought about this too, yet considering it’s bonsai art and the surface of the yew in question is smoothish I’m actually good with the finish at this point

Yet imho the design needs to be carried out more extensively to do the future tree justice. That is something that will need thought and more planning though.

Anyways, Looking forward to seeing future posts for this tree!

cheers
DSD sends

 

[Javaman4373]

Can I assume that if you drill a hole into live bark down to heart wood, that when it heals, it will look like a branch that died off? If so, then extending the dead wood down as a shari could work as a design. Like in this sketch. Any thoughts?

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Nice start. It seems you might be a bit more ambitious to get best effect, simulating damage and subsequent rot/erosion.

Here’s one of Dan’s trees as an basic-example… damage followed by woodpecker attack.


Note more wood can be taken down than folks usually imagine is possible.

Folks often use a die grinder for bigger holes. We usually use various chisels, knives and dremels for smaller jobs. Some folks get burr/grinder bits for portable drills… a bit harder to control, but can do the job.

If one wants to go off the traditional Japanese path, smoothing is often done on Jin’s, as is creating real or whimsical shapes aka Nick Lenz or Matt Reel, but can be done on Shari too. Here’s a recent example done in our yard on a ponderosa pine.


In this vein anything goes. After all it is your tree

Hope that helps

Best
DSD sends

 

[Javaman4373]

Thanks DSD. From what I have read, it is best to do the shari work in the spring, so the cut lines can heal quickly. I will take you suggestion and be more aggressive about the work on the front side of the tree.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Good idea to wait.

Not as the Shari will be an issue over winter, but as it will allow you to reflect and research different ideas.

cheers
DSD sends

 

[Javaman4373]

Good idea to wait.

Not as the Shari will be an issue over winter, but as it will allow you to reflect and research different ideas.

cheers
DSD sends

I think this tree that Graham Potter works on in this video is along the lines of what could be done with the trunk of my Taxus.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Interesting.

In the end you have all winter to decide. It’s your tree to make the very best of.

cheers
DSD sends

 

[Javaman4373]

Here is a follow up on the taxus that I air layered from a tree in our yard in June 2020 and separated in September 2021. It spent this past winter in a grow box in our cool basement with a grow light and today I transplanted it to a pot. It was fairly root bound in the grow box and after separation I had screwed the stump to a piece of board that was now rotting away. After trimming quite a bit of roots I got it settled into a pot. Ideally the pot could have been an inch deeper. So this is the result. I am going to keep it out of the wind and full sun for a while.