Smoke
Ignore-Amus
There has been some talk and pictures of some elms here lately. I love elms and have a few, around 18 of the bastards. They are fast growers and can shape up to a nice tree in only a few years if the stump is good. What do I mean by good stump. Well something with a good start to taper and branches and all the other attributes one should look for in a tree. Probably the worst thing to ever come out of China is the infamous "S" curved elm trees.
It is said that this shape is lucky in China, and the bamboo is shaped like that, called lucky bamboo. The only thing lucky about it is that the Chinese have made a fortune selling these poor misfit trees.
The trees themselves if given enough time will lose some of the ugly S shape and smooth out somewhat. I have seen many (in the right hands) go on and look fairly respectable. Most do not. A few years ago I had the good...er I mean misfortune to purchase an elm from George Muranaka. It was a basket case. Presented in a plastic pot with some green leaves and what looked like brown lava poured over some dead wood.
Since then I have called it the ugly elm and have worked on it over the years and have made some progress. What is unusual is that the elm started out as one of the import "S" curved elms.
I cut most of the branches off ansd started over. Choosing those that could be used to build some sort of framework.
So a few years later, I asked George about the tree at a convention. I asked him how this tree got so ugly. This is what he told me. It started as a Chinese import S elm tree from a box store. It was grown for a few years and some ho became broken, like in half. Most of the tree died except some at the bottom. The person brought it to George for surgery but it looked bad for the tree. George subsequently planted the tree into the ground and forgot about it. Part of the old S curve rotted away, and the bottom portion began to grow around the old deadwood trunk that was left. The elm wood grew much like a trident does by covering everything in a brown coating of lava like wood.
Here is the old trunk line shown in blue with the rotted part of the "S" shown in red. The whole thing back then is not unlike the first tree I showed above.
Several years later, like 4, the tree looks like this. Now I don't know how to get a tree to do this, but I suspect that a perfectly placed M-80 could give one a start. Cheers.
It is said that this shape is lucky in China, and the bamboo is shaped like that, called lucky bamboo. The only thing lucky about it is that the Chinese have made a fortune selling these poor misfit trees.
The trees themselves if given enough time will lose some of the ugly S shape and smooth out somewhat. I have seen many (in the right hands) go on and look fairly respectable. Most do not. A few years ago I had the good...er I mean misfortune to purchase an elm from George Muranaka. It was a basket case. Presented in a plastic pot with some green leaves and what looked like brown lava poured over some dead wood.
Since then I have called it the ugly elm and have worked on it over the years and have made some progress. What is unusual is that the elm started out as one of the import "S" curved elms.
I cut most of the branches off ansd started over. Choosing those that could be used to build some sort of framework.
So a few years later, I asked George about the tree at a convention. I asked him how this tree got so ugly. This is what he told me. It started as a Chinese import S elm tree from a box store. It was grown for a few years and some ho became broken, like in half. Most of the tree died except some at the bottom. The person brought it to George for surgery but it looked bad for the tree. George subsequently planted the tree into the ground and forgot about it. Part of the old S curve rotted away, and the bottom portion began to grow around the old deadwood trunk that was left. The elm wood grew much like a trident does by covering everything in a brown coating of lava like wood.
Here is the old trunk line shown in blue with the rotted part of the "S" shown in red. The whole thing back then is not unlike the first tree I showed above.
Several years later, like 4, the tree looks like this. Now I don't know how to get a tree to do this, but I suspect that a perfectly placed M-80 could give one a start. Cheers.
From the ashes, like a phoenix.... so dramatic!
