My biggest task for the spring break was to deal with the prickly paperbarks.
Let’s see how it went. In alphabetical order…
The Formal
I strongly suspect this one is just going to be a waste of time.
★☆☆☆☆
The Raft
This one was the biggest. It was a lot of work to get out, and then trim into shape. Also, it was getting late, and I was racing the sun. But apparently, you’re going to have to trust me on that, because I stopped taking photos.
This is actually two trees, but unlike the formal, I’m going to leave them together.
I came out for a better photo the next day.
I was initially disappointed with what came out. But I’ve come around to this, and I think this could turn out nicely.
★★★★☆
The Stump
I wasn’t at all sure what to do about this one. The trunks go very straight very quickly. And the root mass is such a block. I’ve mostly got one trick here… start cutting till we see something interesting.
I’ve seen some bonsais which are clearly stumps with new growth. I’m pretty close to that here. But I think there’s a path here for something different in my collection, which is mostly what I want.
★★★☆☆
The Twins
I was uninspired here, so I stuck them back in the dirt and moved on. Then those winds kicked in. When I was cleaning up, I found them blown over. So I stuck them in a pot and called it a night. But that wasn’t a good resolution…
This one got a lot of poor treatment. I don’t know if it will survive. But on the other hand, I don’t much care.
★☆☆☆☆
Conclusion
Summing up:
- A couple that might be interesting given some successful years.
- A couple that are probably a waste of time.
- I’ve cleared out that hedge in the driveway, which is the biggest win here
- I made mistakes in the planting. First, the early images clearly show there were multiple trees growing. Second, they were so close that there were bound to be overlaps.
- In some ways this is a numbers game, but I want to be more careful about how many numbers I’m running.