This Chinese Elm was originally an informal upright design, but about 6 months ago I decided to take a new direction for it.

Here’s a photo of the elm prior to the design change



and an even earlier one… (I think the only thing I can think of about my initial design is “Eww”)



The secondary design I came up with ended up being an almost instantaneous “GO”, here’s what I drew vs. second styling out-come.





With a new grow box and a hand full of people on the local forums I reside in fighting over whether or not the design would work with a deciduous tree, I took my own decision and stuck through it to the end and now I am very glad I took a risk this time.

I believe that without positive and manageable risk we wouldn’t learn anything and wouldn’t have any fun experimenting 😉

This is the elm about 2 months ago mid-spring



A partial defoliation and branch rewiring was carried out during this period (Middle of Spring) and shortly afterwards it shot back again with some more ramifications.

This is the tree as of last weekend’s summer clean-up:





As you can see the tree still has a lot of developing to do but it has come a LONG way in 6 months time and I’m very happy with the outcome so far.

Let me know what you guys think of this elm, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Thanks for reading, later on this week I will post a full blog post of pictures from my trip to Vietnam including the incredibly oversized bonsai they have over there (not that it’s a bad thing haha!).

Kind regards,

James

Before:



After:



BONUS!!! Check out my new clippers, bought in bulk from Vietnam for roughly 50,000 Dong each! ($2.50 AUD). They’re high quality too! Maybe I should give a few away? Send me a pic of your favourite tree (which you own, must have you in the photo as proof, or a handwritten paper with the date in the photo) and I’ll send a pair to you if shipping laws permit!