Hoping for some suggestions/opinions on which direction to take in styling this very unique, large bougie! Any&all thoughts appreciated :D

[SU2]

I'm a bougie-junkie, if a thick section of bougainvillea trunking is going to be disposed of, I cannot help but take it! This piece was ~1/5th of a larger "cluster" of bougie-trunks I removed to install a fence and I did as usual- took it home and tied it into an oil-pan! Spring/summer were very friendly to it and I've now got an impressive root-ball and canopy-mass (basically a little bush now, I just let it grow freely from the time it was planted)

Now that it's grown-out and established itself a bit, my intention is to create my trunk-line, so that I may start growing my "real"/final primaries through the 2nd-half of my growing-season.....but I'm so stuck on which direction to take this guy- if this "canvas" were yours, how would you approach it? Given that it's got 3 trunks, one of which massively over-powers the other two, my best idea is to keep only half of the end of that branch (probably the bottom-half), and use my grinders to make a long (3/4 the length of the branch) deadwood 'channel' down the branch so water can drain off the top and the live bottom-half will support the end of the branch.

I'm also uncertain on orientation, I'd originally thought that, once the large branch's top-half is carved-off, the two rear limbs would become more visible, and it'd make sense to have the large branch as the front-facing branch. However, from the other side, there's kind of a cool effect in that the branches get thicker as they're further away from you (ie the closest branches are thinner than the furthest one, even after I've carved it)

Any & all thoughts on this one are greatly appreciated! I'm working with my cutters (flat & knob) and die- & angle-grinders and am precise enough with them that I can carve whatever I've drawn on paper before powering-up the grinders, but with this guy I just keep sketching and sketching and am coming up with nothing....re-watched some Kaizen/Potter videos for inspiration in working with odd-ball materials which has got me even more eager to come up with what my trunk-line should be despite not bringing me closer to finalizing any ideas- I guess I can always change front/back anytime I want, think it's fair to say that *by far* the biggest hang-up is what to do about that large limb, should I leave its length intact when I'm "skinning" its top half away, I mean I'll be carving/tapering a long section of it in any event but am unsure how aggressively I should carve it *and* whether I should let it keep its length!

I know how difficult a piece of stock like this is to work-out, so honestly *any* ideas whatsoever are appreciated!! Thanks guys&gals ;D

picture of it from the side (the large, un-carved front limb almost-fully obscures the 3rd, smallest limb in the rear)


[Note- that whole hunk of deadwood at the base is dead root tissue, not limb/trunk tissue, I'm unsure if that makes a difference in longevity of the deadwood, or if it's a faux-pas in terms of bonsai aesthetic, am very new to learning the in's/out's of how to make deadwood "work" in a composition, but that bulge of deadwood at this thing's base gives it a lot of charm/character to my neophyte eyes!]

Picture of it from an angle, so you can see that 3rd-branch:


Here's a rough-drawing of what I'm envisioning when I'm talking about removing the top-half of the large-limb, I'd do it far more artistically than my GIMP-editing skills here imply

[yes, I am a total professional with teh graphic design, feel free to PM for pro work ;D lol!]

And for context, here's it from 'the back' to show how it'd be if I changed the 'front' to the back:


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The one thing I know for certain (besides the fact that the biggest limb is out-of-proportion and needs a dramatic reduction) is that I want its position more upright, I mean I'm still intending to make it a 'fallen tree' style of sorts but I want to bump its angle upward at least 15-25degrees! Again thanks for any thoughts on this, I know it's impossible to come up with a picture of the final composition right now I just want to figure out a reasonable trunk-line to carve so I can get a good solid flush of growth grown & hardened before winter (in horticultural terms I know some will balk at this idea, all I can say is bougies grow VERY fast and the "1 insult per year" rule need not apply to them, at least not in my climate!)

 

[milehigh_7]

Don't do anything yet! The first thing I saw was a chance that this might make a really cool raft. I don't think I have ever seen a boug raft but you could do it easily! Give me a second and I will try a quick and dirty virtual.

 

[milehigh_7]

Crappy job but at least it has a nice Chuck Iker pot! Sorry, I screwed up but maybe it's something to consider...

 

[VAFisher]

Haha. First thing that virt made me think of. Carve that right side thing into a dragon head!

 

[choppychoppy]

Crappy job but at least it has a nice Chuck Iker pot! Sorry, I screwed up but maybe it's something to consider...


View attachment 200274

Sweet looks like Viking longboat.

 

[choppychoppy]

Haha. First thing that virt made me think of. Carve that right side thing into a dragon head!

Haha

 

[milehigh_7]

Brilliant! LOL!

 

[SU2]

Crappy job but at least it has a nice Chuck Iker pot! Sorry, I screwed up but maybe it's something to consider...


View attachment 200274

Thank you so much, I think that may be my approach! I'm picturing a couple things here that I wanna make-sure I'm understanding (about what you're presenting), first- for the long/large trunk, the area that's touching the substrate, I wouldn't just lay it flat I'd probably "skin" a 2" wide // 1" tall band across the bottom, both to "open it up" for rooting and moreso to simply reduce its girth relative to the others!

The other thing that I'm thinking, and am guessing you had a reason for but am unable to figure it out, is whether or not that should be rotated (toward the viewer, like bring the top toward the camera / the bottom away) to stop that flaw where the largest branch is fully obscuring the smallest branch behind it (from that angle, at least- in looking at your picture here, I'm starting to think that, if I flipped the front/back of it, I would have the smallest limb no longer hidden and be able to rock this!!)

Thank you so much for the reply!! Am very eager to hear your thoughts on whether I should be, essentially, cutting-off the bottom 10% (horizontally) of the main branch, so that it's not so huge into the soil, seems like it'd make sense in this context, very curious on your thoughts though!


(really can't stress how grateful I am that you took the 'challenge' of giving a reply to such a PITA piece of stock, I've got the time this week and just got all new grinding-gear (chainsaw disk and more ) and new l.sulfur, cannot wait to carve but need to finish my sketches first! In this guy's case, he still has ~1/2 a growing-season to rebound from aggressive work right now, although TBH your suggestion isn't very aggressive, it's just removing the end of the long branch, I guess I would've thought that carving a hollow/deadwood feature down part of the length of that large trunk would be great, mainly to reduce its disproportionate size but also to have more deadwood in my composition!)

 

[SU2]

(Wanted to say thanks again for taking the time to do that, am eager to hear your thoughts on further-sinking it +/- "skinning" the sunken-half of the long limb, as well as your thoughts on making the other side the front, am psyched to move-ahead with this and just got a bunch of new disks&bits for my grinders & sulfur so eager to break them in ;D btw @milehigh_7 , how did you upload that picture to this site? When I scroll-through this thread's pics it doesn't show, although when I check the image url it shows this site.....I always use "attach files" to put images on, though when I have the option I prefer to just hyperlink photos from imgur- am curious what you / others are doing if you've found it faster than uploading images via the Attach Files button!)

PS- re styling, I know that right now we're only talking trunk-lines, but if that's a given/premise, does anything come to you about the canopy? Am still unsure if it'll look better to have the mass of the canopy kind of 'leaning away'/at the end of the limbs, or if I should have it centered on them (ie, a large part of the canopy comes back-over the limbs) While that's "far off" in terms of any worthwhile composure, I do have some primaries that, since many would be kept in this design, would best be wired&angled sooner than later as they're already getting too-thick to do any serious angle-bends at the collar area (and things never look right if there's a sharp angle near the collar!)

Really appreciate you putting the time in for the words & picture, means a lot I was just 'stumped' (hehe) on this one, and know that if I move now I can get it 'set' in time to grow&harden-off for winter, so it's just the right time and I'd sketched & sketched and keep hitting a wall, keep finding extremely different approaches equally appealing, it's great getting another's opinion

 

[SU2]

@milehigh_7 I wanted to say thanks again for having taken the time to help with the mock-ups for this bougie, although I ended up going a different direction because there just wasn't enough movement in that big limb, nor back-budding, to make me think that I could make a decent raft-style out of it (would have to hope for back-budding in the right spots and grow-out from there, so it'd be waiting a lot of time hoping I got the right branches, if that makes sense!) so I tried my best to adhere to the Potter's idea of "turning flaws into features" and styled it in a way I thought was 'neat' after having read Pall's "FTS(Fairy Tale Style)" article a few more times, the odd material just seemed to 'want' this treatment!

I chose to flip the orientation and make the largest limb the back, so I could showcase everything instead of having the large limb blocking it all. With it having no real taper, but being beside 2 branches that had deadwood, I decided to get out the grinders and carve-off the top-half of much of that limb while still leaving the ending intact, with the general idea of making it so the final composition here will be one wherein the branches protrude from the center/base and, where the limbs become branches, just having everything go up & over, kind of a reversed-cascade in a way although I won't let it grow too much downward into the trunking (obviously!), am planning to just have a 'wave' style curvature to all the primaries as they leave their limbs

Am hoping the heavy blooming of this thing (when finished) will be an awesome juxtaposition atop the gnarly, half-deadwood base of the trunking/limbs! I used a small amount of black dye in the first lime-sulfur application but have done 2-3 more applications of pure LS at this point, am unsure what to do here to get contrast but for now just want that wood preserved yknow? But re contrast, I was originally reading about methods for dyeing lime-sulfur for deciduous applications but now I'm not so sure if it's even necessary, would be interested in hearing any thoughts/opinions on that (or any of this, of course )

Here's right after its operation & re-potting:
[front side]

[aaaaand the rear:]



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Today, 6wks after the operation, it's vigorous and lush, just some minor leaf-drop from poor drainage (didn't do my usual drainage-layer...though I think the drainage-holes were too-small and could be getting clogged, thankfully the mix is very 'airy') Am going to have to get some more wire on this guy today
[9.27.18 "front" shot:


[9.27.18: Downward angle shot to show foliage, have been lightly defoliating some spots to let light to the lower/center branching. Note the giant leaves on the upper-right-most branch!


[g'damn! This isn't 'forced perspective' that's just a giant leaf being held beside a regular one, bougies just do this sometimes especially in stress like this when you've got these giant, healthy leaves on the same branch as a smaller, chloritic leaf! It's getting 70% strength osmocote timed-release, every 4-5d miracle gro (at ~5% nitro), I don't care about leaf-size or internode length at this early a stage in development, just girth!


For the final composure here I'm picturing those shoots going up&over but more up than over, as said I don't want to obscure the gnarly base as I think contrasting it with a graceful and bloom-dense canopy is going to be pivotal to doing this the best way I can...while some shoots are clearly being grown-out so they can be cut-back later, the longest shoots are already about as far as I plan to continue the canopy (and are oriented properly for that), instead of the common bougie-pruning approach of just setting up a wide canopy to hold tons of flowers I'm actually trying to get as nice a branch-structure as possible so it looks good 'naked', like - and NOT to disrespect any popular artists - I see some bougies that are virtually "infamous" yet, if defoliated, the branch-structure isn't proper, I mean it's fine when in flower or just lush with foliage but I guess I'm thinking I don't *just* want a specimen that looks good when in-flower (though these can flower almost half the time if done right, it seems!), I want something that'd be good even if it wasn't a flowering-specie.

Any thoughts/feedback/opinions, no matter how significant or minor, are greatly appreciated!! This is probably my first "real" carving job so I understand negative opinions are quite possible but just want as honest an evaluation as possible, doesn't matter if you're into bougies or not I'd be happy for any&all feedback on this

[note: this was up-potted during the 'operations', as it was just a bushy mass that'd filled its 16" oil-pan with a thick root-mat, setup drainage holes along the side to help drain the perched water table a bit better, and have a ton of holes that same size along the bottom, probably 30+. Substrate is a perlite/DE/scoria mix, with some sphagnum at some spots where I wanted to be sure that near-the-surface-level wood would "take" and root instead of dying-back! It's tilted but drainage still stinks, needed 1/2" holes with screen not just a bunch of 1/4" holes..]

 

[SU2]

Oh I should mention something sweet about the deadwood- once I'd decided I was going to carve the heck out of the largest limb/trunking, I considered that one of the other two branches already had a long, natural shari along a large stripe of its length, so my carving was going to leave 1 limb w/o deadwood. It was a 'unique' branch so it didn't matter as much but I still wanted the deadwood more widespread (it's too integral to the final "contrast" of gnarly/old trunk // profuse, vigorous & tight blooms!), I mean it's got that giant deadwood 'butt'/extension from the trunk so the upright limb would be the only one, so I started poking at it to get an idea where I may create a shari, only to find that >50% of the bottom-half of that limb was already a shari (covered by dead bark), so just used a weak drill with a large-diameter wire-wheel to remove the bark/give a little texture, but the "front-most" / upward-arcing branch's deadwood is essentially natural, except my wire-brushing - was pretty psyched at that since deadwood on deciduous is (bad? "frowned on"? Unsure just how bad a faux pas it really is..) but this specimen is going to be utilizing it so natural is always best, I mean the large limb that I carved the shari(or top-removal..) into took a while and I could've done a little better if I'd spent longer but not much better, guess I'm thinking that, in time, I'll see areas that I can carve (or wire-wheel) to help make it look more natural, and it'll age naturally in time anyways and this tree isn't close to 'finished' (I know, not finished til dead, but 'ready to show' so to speak, not necessarily intending to but my goal with my favorite trees is to aim for that / treat them that way (hence being a bit overzealous sometimes on minutiae )

I dislike the lack of contrast in the bark//deadwood interfacing, I've seen bougies' trunks dyed but have just seen 1 example of this (a website has a semi 'specimen' type for sale, and an older picture confirmed what I'd always suspected about the newer picture, that the bark had been dyed/tinted), unsure if it's a faux pas or simply seen as bleaching deadwood (or dyed-bleaching deadwood!), meaning to look-into this, can imagine there's wood-stains that'd work quite well here but it just kind of feels 'phoney'....but with bleaching deadwood, heck - with grafting deadwood - it doesn't seem too out-of-norm. Any thoughts on that would be interesting to hear!

Thanks again MH for the mock-up, obviously a part of me wishes I went the raft approach but it just didn't seem the best after a lot of sketching and deliberation, guess we'll see how this style goes!