Pyracantha Stump Project

This Pyracantha was dug from a hedge in my front garden about five years ago and roughly planted in the borders of my back garden, where it was left to its own devices for another 2 years. In 2011, I cut it back and removed it from the border into the plastic pot you can see in picture 1. It is my intention to use this tree for the development of my own skills. In its present form it doesn’t have much merit as a bonsai tree so I can afford to be a little more bold and experimental than I might be with a more expensive piece of raw material.

In the summer of 2012, it was chopped back again (see picture 2)  and left to grow until the spring of this year.

This is how it looked in April 2014

In the next picture it is obvious that the big chop of 2012 was done in 2 stages as the stump looks a little shorter that it does in picture 2

With the stump removed from the pot you can see that there is  a significant part of the trunk which was covered by the soil. I am not sure at the moment whether I will use this additional trunk length in the future or attempt to cut it back from the bottom

The tree was replanted into a deep bonsai pot with a good free draining soil mix of coarse akadama and kiryu (April 2014).

Buy June of 2014, there are signs of new strong growth so I decided to carry out some initial carving with the Makita and Dremmel.  It might seem a little soon after the re-pot to be attempting this, but this tree, which has been roughly ripped from the ground twice in the recent past has proved to a very tough survivor and I am reasonably confident that this can be done now, without any major detrimental effect on the vigour of the tree.

When the sapwood had dried sufficiently, I gave it a few coats of a wood preserver with an added pigment. It will be kept in full shade for the next month or so during this current spell of hot weather, and fertilizer will be introduced slowly as new growth develops. I am quite pleased with the result so far and I look forward to working on this stump in the future with renewed interest. I will report back on the progress of this stump later in the year.

Advertisement