AusBonsai

This small trident was grown and styled by Peter H. in Canberra and kindly given to me this Summer. Peter also did the carving and sealing with tar. The latter was about ready to come off, but there was no way I could do it myself, so I asked Shannon Young (ex Assistant Curator at the NBPCA) to help me out, once more. And Shannon cleaned off all the tar and hollowed out some of the wounds in the branches so they could become features. When I went to take photos this afternoon, I noticed that my cat Shadow had installed itself next to the Trident. I didn't shift things to obtain a pic of the whole trident, so as not to disturb her.
Below "before" and "after" pics.

Lisa

Off topic Lisa, but is Shadow a Russian Blue?

Shadow - shadow strikes terror into the souls of sharksters, lawbreakers and criminals ... and keeps a watchful eye over Lisa’s collection.

The Shadow Knows

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uMlRpN8AN ... e=youtu.be


Bonsai teaches me patience.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Shadow has orange eyes like a British shorthair. But a Russian blue face. But British ears... I love cats.

Nice cat and trident. I'm really enjoying the young trident I have.

Just out of curiosity what is the purpose of the tar?

Sent from my SM-G570F using Tapatalk

gnichols wrote:Nice cat and trident. I'm really enjoying the young trident I have.

Just out of curiosity what is the purpose of the tar?

Sent from my SM-G570F using Tapatalk

Hi gnichols,

The Tar is a wound sealer from Bunnings. I cant afford the Bonsai wound sealer or the time with the amount of trees I have.

Kind Regards,

Peter

When I thanked Shannon for his nice work, he replied, "Not hard to make a nice tree out of an already nice tree, credit to Peter."
Afterwards, when I suggvested sealing the newly carved wood, Shannon told me not to. He said trident wood was quite hard and it would come to no harm while the wounds aged and got darker. Later on, we would apply some lime sulphur, but lightly.

Regarding Shadow: I don't know what breed she belongs to; all I can say is that she is a genuine RSCPCA cat. Highly intelligent and different from any other cat I've ever had.

Lisa

P.S.: I love dogs too.

Lovely tree and cat! Obviously Shadow wanted to help you out by being available to give the tree scale when you were photographing it.

That cat looks as though its got a bit of Blue-Burmese in there, and that Trident Maple is beautiful. Can't wait to see its progression and ramification over the next 3-5 years. What a specimen you have there

PeterH wrote:

gnichols wrote:Nice cat and trident. I'm really enjoying the young trident I have.

Just out of curiosity what is the purpose of the tar?

Sent from my SM-G570F using Tapatalk

Hi gnichols,

The Tar is a wound sealer from Bunnings. I cant afford the Bonsai wound sealer or the time with the amount of trees I have.

Kind Regards,

Peter

Thanks for the response Peter. I would never have thought of it, but it does make sense.

Sent from my SM-G570F using Tapatalk

I assume that tar sealer is the one called 'steriprune'
It works well enough but takes years to wear off. If you dribble a bit on the trunk it will still be there until the bark flakes off.
I've moved on to a plastic (acrylic?) paint on sealer that appears grey-brown in the container but turns clear when dry. Wash out in water but quite waterproof when it dries so far less distracting on the trees.