Chinese Elm bonsai (Ulmus parvifolia) purchased from Obi in June 2023. I’m excited to document its progress here as I develop it into a more refined bonsai.
05-06-2023 first pruning and moved my Elm to a bigger pot. Visible is the big, horizontal cut on the trunk.
27-06-2023 I’m refining the cut with a concave cutter, making it at a sharper angle. I’m also developing a sacrificial branch to help close the wound.
10-10-2024 the cut is starting to heal over. I’m using two sacrificial branches to thicken the top of the stump. One of them was used for a thread graft to add a new branch on the lower part of the trunk.
06-11-2024 I’ve switched the wound sealant to a putty type.
The pot with the elm is placed in a large basket filled with soil (to encourage root growth and faster development), along with other plants, which makes it difficult to take a good photo. In the spring, I plan to do a ground layer to improve the currently very unattractive nebari.
04-12-2024 I helped the tree a bit by removing all the autumn leaves. I will leave these two long branches for part of the season to support further healing of the wounds (there is also one large one in the middle of the trunk). Hopefully, this will also help the root flare (after ground layering) develop better… The nebari looks terrible at the moment. It’s hard to capture it in photos, but the trunk seems to split into two thick roots.
Since I plan to create a ground layer next season, the trunk will be slightly shortened. I received a suggestion that the newly grafted first branch is probably placed a bit too low. Well, we’ll see how everything looks once it’s on the final roots. If necessary, it will only serve to thicken the trunk, and later it can be cut off or a new branch can be grafted in the correct position.
