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Chinese Elm pruning advice 5 years 10 months ago #40013

  • DanTdr
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Wanted some suggestions on how to prune my Chinese Elm.

It's been about 3 weeks since i got the tree, and it seems to be doing really well, it has a lot of new growth and a lot of new buds, it's been fertilised once a week (liquid fertiliser 6:6:6), watered when needed.
I will transfer the tree to a bigger square plastic pot that is deep and wide and has a lot of space for the tree to grow.

From what i observed, there are some inner growing branches, some are pretty thick and they need to go (maybe plant them and see if i get them to root).
The small lower branches I would like to keep for a while to help the trunk thicken, they should be removed at some point.
I have a nice strong branch that i would like to keep but it is going to the back of the tree.
The trunk seems to have been cut at some point, i do not know what to do with that.
At this point i was thinking of shaping the tree in a broom style in the future, or maybe air layer it next year to get rid of the straight trunk and start from there.

I would let the tree grow but it has many tangled and crossing branches and the light does not pass through.
I attached some photos with some close ups.

Thanks,
Dan

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Last edit: Post by DanTdr.

Chinese Elm pruning advice 5 years 10 months ago #40014

  • Clicio
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It looks healthy and happy.
You can prune it now to get rid of the "wrong" branches, and trim it so it doesn't get leggy.
Take a good look at the trunk, many elms are grafted and the scar will show for a long time, maybe forever.
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Chinese Elm pruning advice 5 years 10 months ago #40017

  • Auk
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many elms are grafted


Are you sure about that?

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Chinese Elm pruning advice 5 years 10 months ago #40018

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many elms are grafted


Are you sure about that?


You see, I was not very sure some time ago; mine surely is, it has a chopstick inserted at the junction.
So I askedaround, and the answer at the time was "many commercial elms are grafted from roots".

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Chinese Elm pruning advice 5 years 10 months ago #40019

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I do not know if mine was grafted, but the branches seem to come from inside the trunk.
I attached another image, i do not know what happened to the trunk it seems to have 2 branches sticking out from the trunk, somehow inside the trunk. Maybe some healing paste (resin from Brunonia extract) will help to close the wound.

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Chinese Elm pruning advice 5 years 10 months ago #40022

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Looks like a graft.
But...
Could be a chop gone wrong, and the new growth sprouted from inside the wound.

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Last edit: Post by Clicio.

Chinese Elm pruning advice 5 years 10 months ago #40024

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@Clicio: it is indeed a graft, you were right. I am a bit disappointed about that but i still like the way it turned out.

So i finally got the courage to trim the tree and even though i was initially aiming for a broom style, i ended up going another way.

I first removed all the dead branches i could find, then i removed the crossing branches, i tried to avoid having any T shape branches and after that i was very far away from a broom style. I asked my wife for an opinion and she said it looked like the wind swept most of the branches back, that seemed interesting so i removed some more branches, tried to do some directional cutting and I went with something resembling the windswept style.

I am pretty satisfied with the result since this is the first time i tried to give a tree a shape.

After the pruning was done i removed the tree from the pot, and it was pretty root bound (had some medium roots going in circle around the pot), i tried to untangle some of the roots without disturbing them too much and i transferred the tree to a bigger plastic pot with organic bonsai soil mix. I was thinking of letting it grow in this new pot for 1-2 years, I don't know if i should remove it next year to work on the roots and put it back in the same pot.

I will have to do some directional cutting or some wiring in the future to shape some branches and fill in some of the space. But i think i will wait a while so that i do not put the tree into shock from to much work at once.

How does it look? Can i improve anything? Did i go in the right way with this tree?
Any advice is appreciated.

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Chinese Elm pruning advice 5 years 10 months ago #40027

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Now...
Let it grow!
:-)

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Chinese Elm pruning advice 5 years 10 months ago #40033

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Auk, here is my grafted Elm before the carving I did to hide the chopstick.
Ugly and dirt work by the nursery in China.

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Chinese Elm pruning advice 5 years 10 months ago #40038

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Are you sure it is grafted?

I personally have never come across a grafted specimen, unless it is a variagated species. The regular chinese elms root from all size cuttings and even root trimmings start growing. It is not just the point where it was trimmed?

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