I have taken some pictures recently of a two of my mame trees in training. I tend to focus more on mame & shohin trees rather than the larger trees that many of my friends have in their collections. The first tree is a seiju elm I got from my friend Neil at Broken Arrow Bonsai. I built Neil a large stand for his large root over rock trident maple and this tree was one of 3 trees he sent to me as a thank you for the work I did. Neil has a great selection of seiju & cork bark elms in his collection and many of them are for sale. This tree stands about 4.5” tall and is quickly filing out. Next spring I will be cutting this tree back hard again to develop only a few primary branches. By eliminating everything else, the tree can focus its energy on those primary branches rather than wasting a lot of energy all the shoots it has now. The original “leader” was broken when a large branch from a tree in our yard fell so a new leader will be established and allowed to grow unchecked for the next season or two. This will add a little height to the tree and also aid in healing over one of the larger wounds at the top. The first picture was taken March 18th 2009 and the second picture was taken August 25th 2009.
The next tree is a Ficus Nerifolia. I saw this tree online and fell in love with the base, taper & height of the tree. The tree was delivered to my house July 15th and I quickly went to work on it. We were having wonderful weather and I knew if I cut it back and wired it, the tree would respond with loads of new growth. I cut about 4” off the top of the tree, wired the branches I wanted to keep and cut everything else off. I cut the remaining branches back and in just under a months’ time the tree has pushed out all new leaves. The branches will be allowed to grow for the rest of the year and cut back aggressively again next spring. The leader will be allowed to grow untouched for at least another two seasons to help heal the scar from removing the top. Once the scar has healed the leader will be cut back hard again. More projects will be added soon, I am in the process of finishing a large wine rack that I am building as a wedding present for a few good friends of ours. I will also be posting a photo-series covering the complete construction of a new shohin stand I am building as well as a few new burl slabs I have started working on.

~Jay