It’s been a year since I “saved” 2 young Quercus Robur trees from the excavator. Here’s how one of them looked like a year ago:

Quercus Robur 3 years old.

After 1 year in a pot the trunk has doubled size and the top branches grew about 40 cm or 16″. I took it to one of my bonsai clubs and Huub Behets, the president of the club and well known name in the Belgian bonsai scene showed how to cut it back so the branches would get some taper and remove branches that will not be used in the future (double apex etc.).



Here’s the tree as it was before the cutback, it grew a lot this year.

The tree as it was 3 weeks ago.

Huub Behets selecting branches.

After the cutback:

Notice the rafia holding up the top branch.

As seen in the previous photo the top branch is tied to the remaining trunk stump. This way that branch gets stimulated to become the new leader branch.

Detail of the new leader.

I did the same to the other sapling I dug out last year.

The other tree on the right.

Now they can grow for the rest of the year and at the end of this year it’s pruning time again.