Project Trident 02 – Update

While this tree has had a couple of mishaps since I last posted about it, Project Trident 02 has been slowly progressing.

You can read about its beginning HERE.

Since that post, I removed the air layers and have been trying to get as much growth in the grafts I could to help them fuse with the parent trunk. I did have a small failure with the first branch’s graft as i knocked it when moving the tree and broke it.

I re-did that graft and it seems both grafts are growing well now. So well in fact I have decided to go into the next phase of this material’s development.

As I am looking to make a smaller tree I will at some stage have to make a fairly large cut to shorten the main trunk.

The newly taken graft on the left side of the trunk and the re-grafted branch lower on the right.

When making large cuts on bonsai, you should always have some sort of plan as to how you will heal/deal with the resulting wound. My plan with this tree is to heal the cut in phases.

What I plan to do with this tree is make half the cut now, use the growth on the main trunk above the cut to heal it and then sever the remaining half of the trunk. This should leave me with half the scar I would have otherwise .

The first cut.

So I cut through half the trunk with a small saw and then cleaned up this cut with a sharp knife and sealed it all with cut paste.

Cut paste applied.

The idea is that with the main trunk still attached, it will draw sap past the cut site and speed up the healing process. The more growth and sap that moves past a scar, the faster the scar rolls over the wound.

Once this is healed I will cut the other half and heal that side by growing out the branches and new apex of the remaining tree. For the rest of the season I will let the branches grow freely and feed the tree accordingly.

A new back branch.

While I had the tools out I also grafted on a new back branch. With this branch in place the tree will be well on its way towards having its foliage changed to that with much better internode/ leaf quality. I will probably look to graft on one more branch onto and or around the scar that is created when I remove the rest of the main trunk. This should speed up the healing of the final scar.

I will be sure to post some updates as the scar heals.