Freegan bonsai - crepe myrtle

I work with a lot of material that is locally-sourced, and that more people should use, so I decided to start this blog with the intention of steering people toward using the wonderful material that is growing all around them. 

Let's start off with this Crepe Myrtle, Lagerstroemia indica.  A friend of mine had a pair of these growing as landscape trees just outside his front door and wanted them out.  He had chopped them back many, many times and they just grew faster than he wanted to trim.  At one time they were far higher than his home.  I'd estimate they are probably 20 years old. 

A note to those planting Crepe Myrtles - there are different varieties to choose depending on the size of the landscape plant you want.  Some are very vigorous growers and want to be a tree, others are medium sized bushes that top out at 8-10 feet, and there are dwarf versions that grow slowly and only reach about waist high.  There are as many size choices as color choices.  Buy the right plant for the space and avoid having to fight them!

But back to Bonsai... So here I come in March 2012 and agree to dig them out.  Rocky soil and lots of tree roots mean this is about a half day dig.  The subject of this post is the tree on the right, the smaller of the two. though both were collected. 

 

 

Crepe's away!  You can tell the size of the tree, compared with my blue recip saw laying on the ground next to it.  A large dig!

Once home, I washed off the roots.  As you can see, it was left very tall.  This is because the two trunks had fused back together at the top.  I thought this was an interesting feature and hoped to incorporate it in the design.  Also there was a smaller Crepe attached at the back that was then removed and potted on its own.

 Nope, those trunks were just too tall!  They had to come down.  At this point I cut the roots back to a flat plane, so they would fit into the pot.  Crepe Myrtles can take a lot of abuse this way.  Don't try this with a juniper or pine.

One thing to note is that the species has a very thin and fragile bark that is damaged easily.  Be very careful when handling the trunk or roots, or you may end up with a scar.

Potted up at last into its fancy pink pot!  I use whatever is available and sized right when first potting up my trees.  My Bonsai friends affectionately call these "Joey pots".. and have learned to recognize all my pre-bonsai by their garish plastic shoes.  The plants don't mind, why should I?  This is March 18th 2012.

A few months of growth, here we are June 5th 2012.  I've let all the branches run for 3 months to strengthen the roots and to get a start on the structure.  No pruning and no bud selection at all, just rampant growth.  It was in semi-shade at this point, so the leaves are a bit big and the spacing is long.

 





 Chopped back now to a few internodes and it is strong enough to take some sunshine to get tighter growth and more branching.  I probably could have put it directly into the sun, but I was playing it safe in the beginning.

 August 17th 2012 - this is what happens when grown in strong sunlight.  Crepe Myrtles need the sun!  They get much more growth and much tighter spacing.  This was actually growing, propped up off the cement, in my driveway - the sunniest spot I have.  Keep in mind, I live in Austin Texas, and this summer we were well above the triple digits.  It's a Southern, happy tree.  Don't try to keep Crepe Myrtles in the shade or indoors, they won't like it. 

So at this point I'm looking at the two trunks.  Can't keep both, one has to go.  I really like the right trunk - it has a nice curve and actually has a flattened twist that you can't see in the photo.  It's by far the more interesting of the two.  But this is the front, the better base and the front says to me that the strong left trunk is the lead and the more important of the two.  I don't see a way to incorporate both, so..

 Chop and the right one is gone.  The taper and muscling of the base could only be used with the left trunk anyway.  Much better!  So now I'm playing around with the idea of taper.. what can be achieved?  I've taken a sharpie marker and colored in areas that I think I will want to carve away to give age and clean up the wounds.

 A quick sketch helps as well.  This was my thought, to keep the strong lean of the tree and work the crown from the high right branch.  Of course, with branches filled in like this, this would be a future image!  I'll leave it alone for the rest of the 2012 year though.  It was only collected months ago, and I'd like to plan for the long term and not rush or stress the tree.

 

 

Oh, and this year it also flowered for me, so I got to see the hot-fuschia colored flowers.  Nice.

Here we are now June 15, 2013.  I would have worked on this tree earlier, but I had a state convention to run and several other big projects, and the trees were left alone to grow and do their thing.  I think this Crepe was roughly trimmed back twice this year.  Probably just grabbed the long shoots and cut them all at once (like Walter Pall's Hedge Cutting method).  It needs some work now.

 

 



Here we are after a little while with the die grinder and some routing bits.  The tall branch pointed up on the right side, which I had planned on being the crown just seemed too straight and boring when I was finally faced with it, so I opted for a shorter tree and went with the new top on the left.  I figured this would also give that part of the trunk a bit of much needed movement.  All the "sharpied" areas were carved out - the teardrop opening in the front, the long shari up to the top, and the cut off branch on the right which became a hollow.  I actually created a hollow into the long shari which I joined into the hollow in the back, as well as the part in the front.  Why?  Well I wanted to release some of the weight (visual and physical) as well as give age.  Oh, and defoliating a tree before major carving or wiring makes everything so much easier!

Here we are after some wiring and placement of the branches.  I'm happy with the shape of the tree now and will let it grow, probably leaving it alone for the year.. oh wait, it's a Crepe Myrtle, no time to rest!

 

 

And now here we are 16 days later July 1st 2013, growing like a weed.  The wonderful side-effect of defolating the tree for styling, is each axil bud then is encouraged to sprout into a branch, increasing the ramification. 

This will need further shaping and branch selection, but that will be for another day.