Ume

I purchased this tree at the 2007 Bay Island Bonsai exhibit last January. It was potted fairly deeply in a throwaway pot. During the growing season I wired and pruned three times, working to develop ramification.


In October or November, it and the other trees went into the cold frame for its long winter slumber. As can be seen below, it definitely leaned toward the (tentative) back of the tree, although the provisional front was only chosen until I could repot and see the nebari.

The tree had some possiblities for deadwood from old pruning cuts, so I was pretty excited about it.


So here's the tree as it came out of the cold frame this spring. It was a very hard long winter, the worst I can remember in many years. The pot split horizontally all the way around, and the back side fell off. It was time to do some work anyway, so I decided to get started.

My first job was to carve the deadwood some. I wanted to reduce it considerably, but I am not ready to introduce uro or cavities yet. So I just reduced it with the Dremel and then set about with a hammer and set of gouges to try to make it more realistic. Following the carving, I pruned it back a bit, and removed the lowest branch on the right, which made the image too static.

Now is time to repot the tree.The tree was well prepared as bonsai material. The nebari was awesome and the roots spread out evenly in all directions. There were plenty of fine feeder roots and the tree had grown tremendously. I did find that this tree needs a little more summer protection, the leaves suffered from the heat and sun last summer.

The base of the trunk had been reduced before, but it was time to do it again. The resulting root pad is very flat. I was so pleased with the quality of this tree! I don't have a photo of it, but I ended up sealing these cuts with grafting paste, the green sticky stuff.


I potted the tree up in a glazed Korean pot, and the roots just barely fit within it. I tilted the trunk to a more upright position, in that it tended to lean away from the viewer fairly severely. The nebari now shows well, and I think the tree is well on its way to becoming a beautiful bonsai.A few words about styling: very old ume bonsai are often shown with just a few branches. This is a valuable image, but by far not the only one available to ume. This one will be more vigorous with more branches.