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This post was edited by moochinka on Sat, Jan 31, 15 at 22:20

Patience :)?

The trick is that bonsai look old when trunks are thicker (tho' hopefully tapering towards the top) and branches and leaves smaller, but it all takes time... You can prune branches shorter and then shorten leafy twigs once they grow in, so the trunk looks thicker in relation to them, but it still takes time. You could post a pic here so we have some idea of what you're working with... there is only so much you can 'fake' with a 4 yr old stick vs a 10 yr old 'trunk' with good bark and many branch options for styling. There are a couple of tricks sometimes used on e.g. pines, but I wouldn't advise your trying them yet, at least not til you've done a lot more reading and experimenting on inexpensive material... but you'd scratch or scar the bark at the bottom of the trunk, or tie a wire tightly around it... but F. tea bark is thin, and I wouldn't want to mess with it like that myself.

This post was edited by moochinka on Sun, Jan 11, 15 at 16:44

ive had it in the same pot since last spring , I just got a nice new one that ill be putting it in this spring. it looks so beautiful in the summer, I had it outside all summer into fall and of course it lost over 80% of its leaves.

Additive growth (thickening) as opposed to multiplicative growth (lengthening and addition of branches/ leaves) depends directly on how much photosynthesizing surface your tree has. The more leaves it has, the more food/energy it can spend in meristematic (cell producing) areas and the more cells it can produce and 'lay down' as radial files in the cambium. These 'files' are actually how stems/ trunks and branches thicken.

There are other chemicals that act as growth regulators that can be used, and scarring the trunk or bruising it is also been shown to thicken trunks, but you might want to hold on the later techniques until you're certain of your ability to keep your plants alive and healthy, which is the key to avoiding frustration while enjoying the practice of bonsai.

Too, a thick trunk can be created by illusion. Your tree is very tall in relation to the trunk's thickness, so it shows no evidence of taper and looks thin. If you got your tree in tip top shape and then chopped 9/10 of the top off to just above one of the first small branches, suddenly you have a fat trunk with lots of taper. As you advance in the art, you'll actually consider that move as the best way to build a tree from what you have. Please don't think I'm looking down my nose at your tree - far from it - it looks just fine. I'm just pointing out that how you look at trees changes as you grow in the art. I have no problem chopping a pretty attractive tree back to nothing more than a promise because it has a good set of roots and I feel it could be a SPECIAL tree if I worked on fooling everyone into thinking it has a really fat trunk and it's really old, just by shortening it and developing some taper.

Example:

This tree was a trident seedling with really crappy roots. I layered it above the bad roots. I drilled holes in the cambium and applied rooting hormone to get the evenly spaced roots. Note the wire tourniquet still on the plant

It has REALLY nice roots
{{gwi:2314}}
{{gwi:6335}}

Now, it will grow for a few years in a really big pot or in the ground. It's already been chopped once. After it has fattened up, I'll prune off the larger side of the trunk.
{{gwi:2225}}

I'll do that 2 or 3 times to develop taper that makes the trunk look older & fatter. I'll also start developing the lower branches while I'm doing this because developing the top is easier and much faster because the tree is so apically dominant (WANTS to put about 2/3 of it's energy in the top 1/3 of the plant).

This is a hornbeam being prepared to layer so I can do away with the crummy roots and build a quality root system:
{{gwi:10875}}
{{gwi:10879}}

Al

Thank you for all the info..

Hi Al this is the post I wrote about in my last post in the container forum. when you say you layered are you referring to air layering? if so could you go into more details about what role drilling the holes & using root hormone plays? I also see 2 zip ties below the holes, what exactly are those for? whatever the case it seems to work really well.

( don't know if you will even see this ) Rob.

I'd be glad to, if the OP doesn't mind. This isn't my thread, so I don't have as much leeway in straying from the OT as I would if it was mine; or, you could start a thread that specifically broaches that topic.

THAT thread I might not see, so if you decide to do that, let me know somehow.

Al

thanks Al I will start a thread- GREAT NEBARI IN BONSAI FORUM.

I'd be interested a great deal as well..