Another post from me with a bonsai needing work (well maybe just an olive in a bonsai pot at this point). It was dug from a garden by a friend and had been pruned back hard. I've removed several main "trunks" leaving these two. Also, started some carving to remove the traces of these other trunks.
I am open to suggestions or please be honest if i should give this tree away as a lost cause.
Cheers.
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Hi,
Wow at least yours seems to have a nice trunk. I just bought a young plant and am looking for advise on keeping it as a bonsai. My olive probably has a couple of years to go before it looks like yours. I wouldn't give up on it, if i were you.
I am hoping to go for a twin trunk, but there is very little taper to them at present and not much to work with up top (because it was cut back). It is shooting from the stump though.
The twin trunks seem to have some potential. All olives I have had have produced large numbers of suckers from the base making them a pain to maintain.
This tree appears to have been cut back too high so, as you point out, there is little taper in either trunk. To achieve taper you have several options:
1. cut back trunks harder then let them grow back. - always a difficult choice for beginners.
2. allow sacrifice branches to grow where the trunk needs to thicken - this can leave unsightly lumps and scars unless managed properly.
I note the taller trunk has a second leader toward the back which, though a little high, would be suitable. Allow any shoots that sprout lower on the trunks to grow long to help thicken the trunks.
To accelerate thickening feed trees often!!!
Both trunks are about the same thickness at the moment. Twin trunks look much better when the taller one is thicker so Allow the taller one to grow more leaves, allow the twigs to get longer and allow more sacrifice branches to grow. Cut back the smaller one harder and more regularly to slow its thickening.
Another tip for twins - Rather than having the front at right angles to the two trunks, rotate the tree a few degrees to left or right to look for a front where one trunk is slightly to the front. For this tree, having the taller trunk a little forward might make it seem a bit larger.
3. Some years ago I heard of a technique of wounding the trunk where thickening was desired. Resulting callus tissue made the trunk thicken quicker - 2 methods a. lightly hammer the bark to wound the cambium between the bark and wood (does hammering right around the trunk effectively ringbark the tree and kill it??); b. slash vertical cuts through the bark to the wood to wound the cambium. Both would need to be repeated regularly (wait for healing before repeating?, make new cuts between previous ones?) Haven't heard much more about these techniques since so either it doesn't work or has problems or few people tried it????
I will have a think about being a bit more severe with the top. And will try to select the branches as you say, to get a new leader and some thickening in the main trunk. But as a beginner I do find it difficult.
I have set the main trunk to the front and tried to make sure it is more upright than the smaller one too.
Should I pinch off the shoots that are right at the base?
You don't need the base any bigger than it is so I'd cut suckers from the base as soon as I notice them. If they are allowed to grow they shoot even more prolifically when they are pruned back.
