AusBonsai

Hey b to the onsai-ers,
This is a post showing the progression so far of my little Serissa shohin/mame (I don't know which!). I was on the hunt for a stocky little chunky base in a serissa and found this one that for the price was a steal. I bought from Australian Bonsai Grower Steve's huge place for $12 and new that i'd be giving her a big cut back in the hopes of developing a stocky little tree in 4ish years. I'd recommend this kind of stock and size tree for anyone who hasn't tried one, especially beginners, you just get so much results so quickly, it's pure fun. So here's the photos!

Adoption day! 5th May 2009 -






3 months later I cut her back hard and root pruned her. New shoots sprang out and I was happy - 5th October 2009





And this was her last night, I wanted to get a good look at her branches and possibly carving possibilities, so I trimmed back her 10cm shoots, and sliced the leaves smaller. I'm really happy so far with her spread of new little branches.








I've also uploaded a short spinning 360 video of the tree here:
http://youtu.be/msVli8mXTwk


Future plans:
I'll be doing a tiny bit of wiring, and i'm looking to carve the two dead trunk top stumps back a bit. The lower trunk stump will most likely be carved totally away and where it used to join to the main trunk, I might very slightly carved into that part of the trunk for extra character.


Here's a (wishful) sketch of what I think the tree could look like in maybe 3 years. The foliage is yes a bit 'poodle'-y but that's just for sketchy purposes.




As always, please hit me up with any feedback or what you all might do with the tree if she was yours, I love hearing other ideas!
thanks,
Jozaeh

Love the Sketch and love the trunk
I thouroughly recommend developing smaller trees. They take far less time to get looking decent and are much easier to manage and maintain

Ken

kcpoole wrote:Love the Sketch and love the trunk
I thouroughly recommend developing smaller trees. They take far less time to get looking decent and are much easier to manage and maintain

Ken

Ah yeah, the sketch was super fun to do hey. And bags you liking the trunk, it's what sold me on her.
Smaller trees ftw forever!

See ya Ken,
Jozaeh

hey jozaeh just wondering how you know she's a girl? haha couldnt help myself. awesome tree though like the way you going with it, keep up the good work

Greenhorn wrote:hey jozaeh just wondering how you know she's a girl? haha couldnt help myself. awesome tree though like the way you going with it, keep up the good work

ha ha! ah nice one Greenhorn. Well when you've been doing bonsai as long as I have, the moment you pick up a stock tree you can tell if it's a boy or a girl. I'll teach you how sometime.

ha! No i just always tend to call them girls hey, i don't know why? and glad ya liked the tree! thanks for the comment.

J

You've got a great specimen
Love the trunk, it looks really old. You really cant tell if its a shohin or a full sized bonsai if you are not holding it.
Great job. I'm looking forward to its new development.

sharemyblessings wrote:You've got a great specimen
Love the trunk, it looks really old. You really cant tell if its a shohin or a full sized bonsai if you are not holding it.
Great job. I'm looking forward to its new development.

Ah that's great you think it's a good specimen too! And darn it, sorry I meant to include the height of the trunk, the trunk is about 7cm tall from base to the top of the chop. And i'll keep ya posted on how it grows and develops,
thanks,
jozaeh

UPDATE - I carved the serissa last night, I just couldn't wait. You can see the old chop I carved into on the lower third of the trunk, as well as carving the top two old branch stumps. It took me around an hour to do it with a variety of dremel bits. The only trouble with carhttps://www.ausbonsai.com.au/wikiving on a small bonsai like this, is that your dremel bits even with tips of 3mm width, are still not small enough!

Carving is hard to convey in photos, so here's a short spinning video that should help to show the carving in detail.
I have filmed it in HD, so watching it at 1080i on youtube and on full screen is the best for detail:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyvwWgTFDK0

Here's some before and after pics, I wired the branches temporarily out of the way to give me access to the stumps to carve.







See ya'all!

Hey Jozaeh,

I reckon the carving looks great and it really shows the branching much better now. This is going to be a ripper little tree

I have 2 serissa in the garden & was thinking about digging one up to play with but they sucker like crazy. Do you have the same problem & how do you control it?

Matt

MattA wrote:Hey Jozaeh,

I reckon the carving looks great and it really shows the branching much better now. This is going to be a ripper little tree

I have 2 serissa in the garden & was thinking about digging one up to play with but they sucker like crazy. Do you have the same problem & how do you control it?

Matt

Hey Matt!
AH bags the carving looking good, I was even surprised how much more is shows the branching too. I'm really excited to see how this little lady turns out in the next couple seasons.

Well I love serissas because of the obvious old bark with teeny leaves and almost un-killable responses to tough chops, but I know what you mean with the suckers, you mean the fast shoots that fling out with the loooong internodes right? This tree shot some out after the cut back, and that's why a couple of the branches on it have much longer spaces between ramification splits than i'd prefer. Which I may have to cut back. I need to make sure she stays in FULL sun as much as possible to help fight that. I guess that'd be my only tip for sucker fighting, full sun so the tree doesn't have to travel as quick and as far to get light as it might think?

I may or may not know what the heck i'm talking about!
J

Now that is some narly looking wiring !! Effective no doubt.....

mattgatenby wrote:Now that is some narly looking wiring !! Effective no doubt.....

Ah yes, that's quick wiring just to keep the branches safe from a wayward dremel Matt, It's easy on then easy off with a wire cutter snip snip when i'm done.

and yes, very effective!
j