I just picked this burning bush last November. The only thing I have done is lower a few branches and put a little bend in the trunk. It has an annoying knot at the base and the branches need ramification.
Other than that what do you think/see?
PS. I have thought about air layering it...IDK


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i don´t understand why you wire the tree like that because the trunk is too big unless if you are going to air layering later, even so ,if it was me i worried first to gain some( a lot ) of lower ramifications, but it´s just my opinion, wait for more experienced reply
hope i could help

ykbonsai I think you should study first and then give advices and opinions once you know what you are actually writing about.
BonsaiBender - I think this could be turned into interesting literati, it needs some more interesting bends, look up the net for inspiration, or have a look at Literati style penjing by Qingquan Zhao.
Other option is pruning hard to that knot and start from scratch.
I don´t see any point in airlayering at all - you would get tiny branches for trunk - total waste of material. Unless you would airlayer that knot away.

I agree with kristof it could do with some nice bends , I like the gradual taper on it but that knot is quite a problem

I might air layer at the knot. Shouldn't be too hard since it is so near to the base. Burning bush(s) is a slow air layering material.


The wood on BB is very stiff. I don't know yet what I will do about bending it. This is as much as I can get out of it today.

WHat do you mean with burning bush? Is this an eonymous spp?

These can be cut back hard. At the moment, the trunk is very thin for the size of tree, and the trunkline is not nearly interesting enough to create a literati from.

I would recommend either growing the trunk a lot (!) thicker, or cutting back. Maybe even to the so-called knot (Which I do not see as a major problem in and of itself). One could airlayer. Eonymous are amongst the fastest and easiest rooting species I know.

Apart from the difficulties shaping the trunk for literati-style:
I think this is one of the hardest styles. It requires almost perfect branch placement to look credible. You have very little to work with to compensate or hide mistakes.

Literati is usually not done on deciduous trees either. Normally it is for conifers like pines.

Not saying it is never done, not saying you shouldn't try, but recommending you to choose another style for this tree.

Well I want to thank everyone for your comments. I am going to stick to the plan but work on a more interesting trunk and of course foliage and branch structure.

Here is an update of the new bends I am working on.


I will update this thread as it progresses.

Krištof wrote:

ykbonsai I think you should study first and then give advices and opinions once you know what you are actually writing about.
BonsaiBender - I think this could be turned into interesting literati, it needs some more interesting bends, look up the net for inspiration, or have a look at Literati style penjing by Qingquan Zhao.
Other option is pruning hard to that knot and start from scratch.
I don´t see any point in airlayering at all - you would get tiny branches for trunk - total waste of material. Unless you would airlayer that knot away.

kristof i think you shouldn´t stay in this forum, i say what i want when i want, you should read first ( specially final part ), next, who do you think you are, the Mister Miyagi? the master of knowledge? I don´t think so. sayonara

I would appreciate if you two took this up in private messages. This thread I started I would like to continue to use to track the progression and don't want other forum members to have to read through this crap.