I’ve just added a new case study to the site. It shows the progression of a Yamadori Scot’s Pine from 1998 to now. Click on the image of the tre below to have a look.

Over the years I have mostly used Lime Sulphur to preserve any deadwood on my trees. Last year I decided to try a few different products. I had a few reasons for changing. Firstly, I find that Lime Sulphur doesn’t do that great a job of actually preserving the wood. Secondly, it tends to be far too white and unsuitable for deciduous trees. Thirdly, I’m finding it harder and harder to get my hands on Lime Sulphur, other than little 100ml bottles that cost far too much, and sometimes of dubious quality.

My main option to actually stop wood rot was to use Ronseal Wet Rot Wood Hardener (It Does exactly what it says on the tin 🙂 ) I can get this at any hardware store and 500ml costs £8.00. I have found this very effective in preserving my trees. Basically you are adding a clear liquid onto the wood which soaks in and hardens like plastic. The main drawback is that it leaves a slight shine that does wear off after a while. Someone somewhere said you can take the shine off with acetone. I haven’t tried this.  The image below can be clicked on to view the product info.

Whilst ordering a few things from Kaizen Bonsai I spotted a few other products that were being sold specifically for preserving deadwood on bonsai. I ordered a bottle of each for some experimentation. First up was this product.

Natural Bonsai Deadwood Preserver selling at £3.75 for 100ml. I used it about 3 months ago on a Cotoneaster that has a lot of deadwood. Up until now it’s been Lime Sulphur only on this tree and I find it far to white for the image. I added this product and the first thing that struck me was the smell! It honks!! It says to apply the product onto dry wood and let it soak in for a few days before getting it wet. It soaked into the wood very quickly. It stayed in my garage for 2 days and was every bit as smelly by the third day. I placed the tree back into the polytunnel where it been getting some protection form the snow etc and to this day, every time I open the door, I smell it! I would not like to display this tree indoors at a show this year in fear of stinking the room out. I have my doubts about the preserving qualities as well.

The next product from Kaizen is Tree Gum. It’s a 170ml bottle costing £6.95. I liked what I read on the site.

“Exclusive to Kaizen Bonsai, this liquid tree resin penetrates deep into old dry deadwood where it replaces the natural oils and resins that have been lost through weathering. Made using a pure natural tree resin, this is natures own way of preserving wood. Apply to dry weathered wood that is already coloured to your satisfaction. Tree Gum will penetrate extremely quickly deep into the wood. Once fully dry the natural underlying colour will return.”

I have used this on a few smaller trees to get a feel for it. It penetrates the wood well, has no smell and dries clear with no shine. I must say that I like the look of this one and plan to use it further this year. I doubt it hardens like the Ronseal product, but it’s natural and causes no harm to the tree or me 🙂

My next step was to experiment with using more than one product on the same tree to see how the react to each other. I used the Ronseal on my Escallonia followed by Lime Sulphur. The Lime Sulphur covered it no problem and also removed the shine 🙂

Below is Ronseal freshly applied on top of Lime Sulphur on a Juniper. You can see where rot had started to kick in right at the base of the tree. I’ll add another coat of LS to finish it off.

Last up is a Maple with a rotted base. I bought this tree last year, taking a risk on the health. I uncovered even more of the trunk showing a natural shari. Not ideal on a maple but I plan to make a feature of it. This is being treated with Tree Gum.

If you are using anything different, I’d love to hear about it.