AusBonsai

I collected this Hawthorn almost 3 years ago and all was doing well. As you can see it has 3 trunks. Sadly 2 of the trunks have died leaving me with one living trunk and 2 dead trunks. I am at a loss as to what to do with it now as I had collected it because it had the 3 trunks and had planned my styling around that.
Also I've not worked with Hawthorns before so Any suggestions would be nice.

I would get rid of the stand alone dead trunk and calve the other.
I would also take the living trunk down to the first leader to get rid of the long,straight skinny new bits, trim all branches back to the first leaf.
Maybe a repot aswell, to see whats hapening down low, maybe there is a reason for the dead branches.

My

Mick

Hi Vice , hawthorns are notorious for die back but also for going dormant in part or whole for up to 5 years .In winter they prefer a water beds or semi submerging .I have had them remain dormant for 4 years after initial collection and through constantly monitoring the swamps here full of Hawthorns i have found many hawthorns will react to flooding and resprout from what looks like deadwood The younger smooth bark does turn black however the aged rippled bark may very well be alive . I have replicated nature and drown the tree completely submerging for 2 weeks , sometimes a further week or so is required to bring them out of what seems a death bed when it is in fact very prolonged dormancy 3-4 years . Drill a few test holes down the trunk to see if it is actuall dead or dormant , As for styling well i don't influence anybodies styling nor do i critic .Hope this helps .Cheers Alpineart

Mick - A repot is on the books quite soon.

Alpineart - I could swear the two trunks are dead, the main one is just throwing out buds now and the 2 dead trunks bark are hard and brown when given a simple scratch test. Is there a chance they may not be dead? The growth they had on them died midseason at the start of the year.

Hi Vice there is always a chace there may be a live vien there somewhere , hence a drill will give you a definate answer without damaging the bark ,they can and do shed bark with a new layer forming underneath regenerating the what seems dead wood. Cheers Alpine