leaving wires on developing material

[Fegoat]

Hi

Has anyone left wires on developing material?
like leaving the tree swell over the wire and swallow it completely

I have a couple of 2-3 year old pines and larches that i have wired initial movement into.
I put them in bigger pots and plan to leave them be with minimal intervention for 5 years, only wiring movement into new growth and adding fertilizer.

What are the effects of leaving the wires on?
I heard it makes the trunk look more gnarly and rugged faster + its less work...

 

[Eckhoffw]

Pete Chan talks about doing this fairly often.
Also,

Letting bark grow over wire to thicken the trunk?

http://vimeo.com/8052130 In this new Lindsay Farr video (that is quite well done as usual), they talk about pines being wrapped in wire and letting the bark grow over the wire. What is the consensus on this? I have read about scaring the trunk with a razor blade as well. Seems like a...

www.bonsainut.com

 

[Eckhoffw]

I attempted this once on a Norway spruce sapling. It did seem to begin to work but it died before it ever engulfed the wire.
I don’t think the wire killed it, but not sure.

 

[Bnana]

It does create thickness and a sort of gnarled structure. But I have never seen an example that looked anything close to natural and it's often just ugly. What you might win in time you lose with waiting for the scars to disappear.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

There are prime examples of especially JWP where this is visible 20 years after the act.
It's OK to have some scars but engulfed wire seems to me as something that would make future carving problematic.

 

[PA_Penjing]

Biggest problem I see is the the wire bites in hardest where it's the tightest. Odds of that being at the base of the seedling are hella low.

 

[WNC Bonsai]

Most professionals who have weitten or done videos on this suggest removing the wire on deciduous trees before it begins to bite in to prevent scarring which can last almost forever on some trees. On one of Bjorn’s videos he suggests that with conifers to let the wire start to bite in then remove it before it goes so far it is difficult to get it out of the bark without damage. However letting the wire embed itself in some pines is an accepted practice particularly in Japan since it forces the tree to create reaction wood growth giving the gnarly appearance. I prefer to remove it on all my trees before it bites in so I typically use aluminum wire as it is cheaper. Since you can leave copper on conifers longer it tends to even out the cost.

 

[SeanS]

Leaving wire on young JBP trunks a little longer than usual is a thing, and does cause some rapid thickening when the wire is removed and the resultant scar tissue fills in the scars. I’ve had some pretty good thickening on young shohin JBP.
The wire can be applied selectively to lower sections of the trunks where you want more thickening, but you do need to keep an eye on it and remove it before it cuts in too much and cusses too much damage when being removed.

 

[Tieball]

I just take the wire off before there’s a canyon of a scar. There’s nothing natural about wire.

 

[Shibui]

I've also seen the work done with pines. Most of the examples shown look really good but I have often wondered how many others don't turn out so good and end up on the scrap heap so have resisted the temptation to try.
A couple of years ago I wired some very small Japanese maple seedlings. To get the bends I wanted for shohin sized trees I needed to start with very thin, flexible trees and used thin copper wire. A lot of them snapped while bending but that's another story. The successful trees were planted in a grow box to get good growth. When I went back to remove the wire they had thickened more than anticipated. I managed to remove the wire from some reasonably easily. Some damage on others because the wires were partly embedded and a few had completely swallowed the wires at the base of the trunks. Just to see what happened I've kept growing all these trees. The ones with embedded wires have swelled way more than the others. As the wires are low on the trunks this has resulted in massive low thickening. As far as scarring, there's still a faint spiral line on the trunk after 2 years but as I still haven't started to develop branches there's still plenty of time for that to fade.

Some initial observations:
Leaving the wire in produces way more thickening than scarring but removing the wires.
Wires must be applied right from root level. Trunks only expand where there's wire so starting slightly above roots means massive reverse taper right near the base. Maybe layering could be used to solve the problem but that's just adding more complexity. Best to wire bare rooted trunks so wires can be applied right from root level.
No point leaving wire on a long length of trunk if taper is the aim. Just leave wire on a short section, length depending on the planned ultimate height of the trunk.
Technique appears to work on deciduous species as well as pines.

After having actually had experience with embedded wire I'm more inclined to believe it could have possibilities.