Re: Broom style -- bonsais

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Date Posted: 15:05:21 11/06/01 Tue
Author: Tony
Subject: Re: Broom style
In reply to: ant ross 's message, "Broom style" on 15:03:29 11/06/01 Tue

>On another message board someone was talking about
>trunk chopping a benjamin ficus to create a broom
>style.
>Broom style is a very interesting looking tree that
>take several years to develop. It involves more than
>just cutting the trunk into a stump and it takes long
>time to get the large number of branches that come
>from one point on a tree to look like the classic
>broom style that you see in the books.
>Not all trees can be made into broom style, and the
>benjamine ficus is no exception because it seems to
>have a random resprouting pattern. The best trees to
>use,in my experience are elms (almost any variety) and
>zelkovas.
he couple fo times that I have tried creating a broom style tree were quasi-successful. I cut the trunk straight off, horizontally. I bound the trunk from the cut to about two inches below it with raffia, I coated the woody part with a sealer and was careful not to seal the cambium and then waithed for the new sprouts.
After the new sprouts grew with long whips, I cut them all back to the first two leaves except for one branch in the middle that I was going to let grow until the following spring. I repeated the process on the new whiplike sprouts the following year and within four yrs, I had a pretty good looking broom style. All they needed were to get twiggier but in the fifth year winter, we had a particularly cold spell, with temps at -20 below 0 F for almost two weeks straights with wind chills approaching -50 below 0 F. The folloing spring, the trees had a great deal of dieback and I gave up on the booms style and just concentrated on producing standard informal uprights.
These were all elms. I dont know about maples but would liek to hear any successes if possible and how it was accomplished.

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