Five-Point-tie to anchor your Bonsai

Apologies to those who follow.. it has been a crazy-long hiatus since I've updated my blog.  I have since found Instagram and have had a blast sharing photos and short descriptions on my trees. This topic however deserves more attention since I wanted to do a step by step for those who haven't tried a 5 point tie-in during repotting to really lock your tree into its pot.  I was taught this by the very talented Kathy Shaner years ago, who wants good information out there so people are able to make great bonsai.

Let's start here, a tree (sadly a dead Satsuki, but it'll be our mannequin today) and a small unassuming pot in need of a bonsai

We can use this same system with a two-hole or even a one-hole pot (a topic for another post), but for this one we will show the ideal situation: four tie-in holes located behind each of the feet.  Hint.. I drilled these holes in this pot for tie-downs and also for added drainage.  Don't be afraid of altering your pots to work better!  This pot is cheap, but I've bored holes in expensive handmade ones as well.  In the end, it needs to be a functional container.

Next take two lengths of wire, here I have chosen different colors: yellow and green.  To estimate the length, it is approximately twice the length of the pot. But this is important, place the wires in the holes on the short side, front and back.  This way you are wasting less wire under the pot and most importantly it is hiding the wires behind the feet so you don't see exposed wires under the front rim when displayed. Also, copper wires are MUCH better for tying in a tree. They don't stretch and are much less likely to break.  I prefer regular electrical copper wire, with the plastic coating still attached.  The plastic prevents corrosive metals from harming roots and even cushions the wire.  There is no point in using expensive annealed wire as a tie-in.  For this demo I used 18 gauge wire.

Flatten the wires on the bottom and pull them tight upward so there isn't extra slack left. Here are four points.  Some people will just cross them and tie down, usually yellow to green. But there's a better way

Now for the tiny detail which makes it all work so much better. Take a smaller length of wire, this time it is red.  It needs to be about the length of the pot.

Make a loop and twist the end around itself to lock the loop into place.

Fully locked loop, now ready to use.

Thread this on the back side wire, I prefer the back left because I tend to tighten the wires counterclockwise (probably because I'm right handed)

This is how the wires should look as it is ready for the next steps

Add soil to the bottom of the pot so that the tree will not be resting directly on the ceramic. It provides a cushion for the bottom of the root pad.

Just a thin layer is fine most of the time

Set the tree in the pot and nestle it down in the soil

Then add more soil so that it comes about halfway up the rootball.  Chopstick this in under the edge and also in among the roots to "set" the tree. It might carefully stand on its own at this point .

Now take the main wire (yellow) which has the 5th point wire (red) attached.  Push the red down to the soil line and bend the yellow down to the front.

Since I'm tightening the wire counter clockwise, I cross the wires the same way each time to make it easier for me to tighten them all the same way. I always cross it over to the inside.

Twist this down a couple of turns, but this first crossing doesn't necessarily have to be very tight.

Next pull this second yellow wire flat and over to the green, crossing to the inside.

Tighten down.  A tip: using pliers, pull up to take out the slack and then twist down, otherwise it may break the wire.

Bend this green over to the back, and again cross to the inside.

Tighten these down and then take the back green and bend it over to the left.

Cross to the inside with the little red 5th point dog tail wire we made, closing the circle.

Twist these together and remember to pull up first to remove slack and then twist down with your pliers.  This section is easy to break otherwise.

All of the wires are twisted and connected and the tree is secure in the pot.  If you have to put strong wires against roots, add a bit of padding under the wire first.  My preferred pad is a piece of rubber from a hose.  If there is a hollow and the wire doesn't quite touch, put in a piece of cork to fill the space and press down against a root.

Clip off the extra length to tidy it up.

Don't try this at home, but I'll demonstrate that the tree is completely locked into the pot: one finger lifts it all and the roots don't shift.

Fill in the remainder of the soil, covering the wires, and chopstick down soil into any cavities of the roots.  The wires are completely hidden now.

And here's what it would look like with invisible soil!  With all of the substrate poured out, the wires still hold the tree very securely into the pot,but as you can see it's a gentle hold all around the root base like a basket.

Try this technique out, it will revolutionize the way you repot your tree. Not only are your bonsai more secure, but you are able to place them in much more dynamic positions, some which seem to defy gravity.

Bonsai Art & Care |Austin Bonsai Society |Central Texas Gardener

Several members of the Austin Bonsai Society and The Texas State Bonsai Exhibit (including me!)were interviewed about bonsai in Texas recently by the PBS show Central Texas Gardener, and it was just released last weekend.  Practicing bonsai is about growing trees, yes, but it also is about sharing our stories too!

Fuzzy little stow-away

Arctic winds have been pushed down to Austin this week.  Our city is colder than parts of Alaska!  So of course there was a mad dash to tuck away all the Tropicals for the winter, and then pulling any of the borderline sensitive plants (some subtropical species) in for an evening or two. 

Tonight while looking at some of my protected Bonsai, I started cleaning off the odd dead leaf or twig that had been brought down by the wind.  One was this Anaqua, or Sandpaper Tree (Anaqua ehretia), a Texas native, but one that is found in the Southern half of the state.  I tend to protect mine when the temperatures go into the 20's, as we've been warned of for the past 2 nights.  This little tree will have its own posting about its history, but that will come later.  What a messy background!

 

Cleaning up the tree, my fingers suddenly grabbed something soft which began to move.  I immediately dropped it, and to my surprise, it was an Asp, or stinging caterpillar.  They're not uncommon, but I have rarely spotted them in my area, and had to take a few photos of the fuzzy monster:

 Awww, he wants to snuggle!

 

I know people have been "stung" by Asps, but I never have, and luckily the venom didn't get into the skin.  Score one point for calloused bonsai fingers!  Here is some light reading on the furry creatures from the Texas Poison Control Network:

The best known flannel moth and stinging caterpillar in Texas is the puss moth caterpillar, Megalopyge opercularis, commonly called an "Asp." This caterpillar is often abundant and may infest shade trees and shrubbery around homes, schools, and in parks. They are of little importance as enemies of shade trees, but they can cause a severe sting. When a puss moth caterpillar rubs or is pressed against skin, venomous spines stick into the skin causing a severe burning sensation and rash.  Puss moth caterpillars are teardrop-shaped, and, with their long, silky hairs, resemble a tuft of cotton or fur. Their color varies from yellow or gray to reddish-brown, or a mixture of colors.



I guess reminders like this are important - be careful of what lurks in your trees when you take them inside!  

 

Flowering freegan Crepe

The Crepe Myrtles have just loved the weather this year and so I thought I'd post a quick update on my Crepe Myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica) #12 which I wrote about last year here: Freegan bonsai - crepe myrtle

This is one of the large, full sized tree Crepes and produces big leaves, big flowers and quite a bit of space out to the ends of the flower bracts.  Still, the color is intense, much stronger than in the photograph.  Others are blooming too, but they will need their own blog story told.

Summer in the South is a time that's full of flowers and these are always a welcome sight!

Boxleaf Euonymus #43 - a prize in every box!

Friends, fun and a weekend of Bonsai - I never miss one of the Lone Star Bonsai Federation state conventions.  This year it was hosted by the Houston Bonsai Society, a great group with a lot of energy.  As usual, the workshops and critiques were thought provoking, the vendors brought way too many goodies that shrank our wallets (oh the handmade bonsai pots and handcrafted wood stands!), the exhibit featured some of the best Bonsai in the state, raffles kept the atmosphere fun and light, and wherever you turned there was some event taking place whether it was the Emerging Talent Competition or the late-night Pub Committee. 

One thing that I did not expect though was to win one of the prizes of best trees in the exhibit, judged by the visiting artists.  You can imagine my surprise at the banquet ceremony as I'm sitting crossed-legged and barefoot on the floor taking photos for the club newsletters when they call my name.  I was awarded Best Broadleaf Evergreen for my Boxleaf Euonymus in the Exhibit.  I was touched and honored, and was given a laugh when I came down from the stage and heard someone say "congratulations hippie!"  Ah, my people!

Here is my full (small) display from the show: a small Boxwood, a Wood-Violet accent and the Boxleaf Euonymus.  It was chosen by the visiting artists: David DeGroot, Arthur Joura and Pedro Morales.

2005 March. The story of this tree, Euonymus japonica 'Microphylla' began in my neighborhood.  A new family had moved into an older home and wanted all the older shrubs removed.  The estimate is that the bushes had been there for about 30 years.  It was my luck that I happened to be biking down that street that day and noticed they had dragged two shrub stumps out to the curb for trash pick up.  At the time, I didn't even know what variety of plant they were, only that the bark had an interesting deep reddish color with tiny white streaks.  The internet is your friend in plant ID!

2005 March. They were nothing to look at, at this point, just two big clumps of trunks that were all fused together at the base.  I soaked the dry root-balls overnight to rehydrate them, and the following day began washing the old mud from the roots and trying to detangle the trunks which proved impossible.

 

 

2005 March.  I couldn't get a tool in-between the roots to pry them apart.  I tried to imagine leaving the multiple trunks together, but I couldn't see the design.  There had to be another way.  On the ground it went:

 

2005 March. And out came the electric chainsaw!  I cut as carefully as I could, avoiding the important surface roots and trunks as much as possible.

2005 March. Amazingly, it wasn't only the surface roots that were fused, the roots were together much deeper as well.  It was almost like a solid block of wood with random holes.

2005 March. After a short time of separating, this is what I came back with: individual trees, sometimes in multiples of 2 or 3, but all had a base and shape of their own.  No longer was it just a random mass of trunks.  This photo is of the clumps, newly sawn apart and separated.

 

 

2005 March. This brings us to one grouping with three trunks dancing around each other:

2005 March. I hadn't worked with this type before, so I tried to be careful with the roots, leaving plenty of them and plenty of room in the pot.

2006 January.  I had let the tree grow for the year, removing nothing from the top to try to strengthen the roots.  It had a little die-back, but also produced lots of buds all over the trunks, sprouting multiple buds from each location (as many as 10!).

2006 January.  This is the shot after thinning the extra branches in each of the bundles, cleaning out the few dead branches and putting in a "prop" to separate the trunks in the middle.  The prop was just a few pieces of chopstick lashed together with electrical tape.

2008 February.  Whorl branches were continuing to be removed and over-long shoots were trimmed back to equalize the strength of the branches.  It grew well and popped more buds, but showed me how slow this tree is to develop.

2008 February.  I had to do something about those cut off stubbed ends of the trunks, so they were shaped/carved and the branches were thinned again.  All the main branches were wired as well to give movement and to spread the shape.

2009 March.  This little tree grew well during the last year, filling in nicely.  But this photo shows one of the problems with this species - all branches want to grow straight up.  Even wired out, the growing tip will start again to grow straight up and not out.  This causes a lot of crowding.

2009 March.  The branches were thinned again and wired.

This year was tough on the tree, a bad infestation of Euonymus scale attacked and seemed to persist through many different treatments.  This pest seems to take over much more easily in shaded conditions - trees placed in sunnier areas fared better.

July 2009.  Not a lot of growth to show due to the Scale, and some branches actually died as a result.  I didn't like the way this tree was progressing, style-wise.  The top is just too flat and even. 

2009 July. To make the apex more dynamic, the trunks were cut at different heights, using interesting branches that were already there.  It looks sparse again, but the structure is now ready.  Sometimes it just takes a while to work through the design.

2010 July.  With the Scale on the run, this Euonymus had a great year, putting out a lot of growth.  It was allowed to run during the last year and this is the result - much more strength and density.

2010 July.  Multiple branches were again thinned and the remaining ones were wired down and away from each other.  It should be noted that the non-lignified branches of Euonymus are VERY easy to break.  They are almost like a succulent jade or other fragile branch.  Be very careful when working with them if you have important branches.

2011 March.  The left trunk had an odd die-back all long its length.  I carefully pulled away the dead bark and cleaned it, and actually liked the effect of the stripe.  Six years in the same pot, it needed to be repotted badly.  Also it looked like it had filled out enough, that it was about time to get it out of plastic and into a Bonsai pot.

 

2011 March. A very dense and healthy root ball.

2011 March.  Repotted into a round drum pot with a darkened "nail" pattern.  I felt the color blended well with the trunks.

2011 September.  More density, more branches



 

 

2011 September.  Thinned out and wired again.  This continual wiring out of the tips of a plant that wants to grow vertically creates a really interesting undulating branch line over time.  People who work with Pine trees know this well.

 

 

 2012 August.  This tree is finally beginning to feel mature.  The branches are beginning to have a light, airy quality to them that years of technique brings, and the trunks are all relating to one another.  The only yearly maintenance is to wire those outer growing tips down, to shorten branches back to the  line of the tree, and to watch for that dreaded Euonymus scale.

 

 

2014 April.  Now back to the present.  I need to develop more density in the top of the left trunk and work on its apex.  Right now it is just too loose and open.

 

 

If you get the chance to work with Euonymus japonica 'Microphylla' - do it!  There are different varieties of Euonymus as common hedging material, but this variety seems to be the best suited to Bonsai.  There is a dwarf variegated form too, but it grows even slower, so a collected specimen is a must!  The fun of this tree, besides the rarity and interesting trunks is the fact that it was a curbside discard.