I think it’s going to be touch and go with this Golden variety of Escallonia. I collected it yesterday from my Dad’s garden. He had dug it up a few days before and moved it to another spot until I was ready to collect. His reason for digged it up was the massive damage caused last Winter. It only had 3 live branches on the whole tree and one little shoot appearing at the base.
This is how I found it yesterday.
I cut back a few of the heavy branches that had no foliage on them. All of them were dead. One of the branches was very tall and I was going to have to cut it off it fit it in the car. This branch however had a live bit at the top. When I sawed through the branch, this is what I found in the heart wood.
You can clearly see that the branch isn’t alive the whole way around the circumference. Escallonia is very similar to juniper in that they have a very defined live vein system in their growth structure. Specific branches correspond with specific roots, cut either off and you loose the other. This left me with two live branches on the tree and one little shoot at the base. Totry and ensure survival, I had to leave both live branches uncut on the tree. As it sits now neither of these branches is usable in any future design but by leaving them I hope to see a bit of back budding lower down the trunk.
I got it home and potted it up. I used a mix of SP Cat Litter, grit and bark. I decided to use bark to add a little more organic material to the mix and aid moisture retention within the pot. This is the bark I used.
and the mix
I selected a pot that would be a reasonably tight fit.
I potted the tree up in the poly tunnel where it will stay until it either dies or shows strong signs of growth next year.
Now I play the waiting game….
This is a previous post about the tree. 
I also had to explain to Stephen from a Health & Safety point of view that we had several tables on offer, all at different heights to suit the size of the tree.
The tree after dewiring. It has back budded very nicely since it’s haircut in May. Next year should see some strong growth for this tree.
Michael brought along a Japanese White Pine. This tree had lost a few branches in the last few years and it made the original front hard to work with. This was the original front.
The first part of the trunk line was interesting but the straight top section was a problem. Also, the first branch to the left was heavy and straight and had also suffered die back. We discussed a few options and Phil even took some time out from bark striping to have a look too.
We had a few options. One was to make a shohin tree by taking it back to a low branch. If it had been a Scots Pine, I might have considered this, but not with a Japanese White here in NI. You rarely see a happy vigorous tree of that species here. People allow them to receive far too much water. This new option would require strong growth and the tree would bleed sap profusely from the major wound.
This front had a few benefits. The movement in the upper trunk was better and the straight lower branch was now a back branch that couldn’t be seen. The nebari isn’t just as good but there was marginal. The branch layout created a better and more convincing image. I thought that the tree was too tall and that a new lower apex was going to be needed. The biggest problem, and one that can’t really be seen in the photo, was going to be the fact that the apex leaned back slightly. We discussed this and decided to add a guy wire to pull it forward.
We got to work and very quickly got the rest of the tree wired so we could place branches. We ensured that all buds were facing up, important on a JWP. We added another guy line to bring the apex more over the base of the tree. As it sat, the flow of the trunk line was annoying me. By applying these two guys the height of the tree was reduced sufficiently for us not to bother with reducing the height of the apex by removing branches. This was it after wiring.
Mike had to shoot off at the end and there was a few other tweaks that I wanted to do. That branch near the top on the left needs to be lowered to match the rest. However I think we made a better tree out of it in the end. Here are the before front and the after front side by side.
This is how we attached the guy line. Mike hadn’t seen the eye loops used like this before, however he was first to suggest using a wood screw. Sometimes this is the only option as there isn’t anything suitable there to guy too.
This is one of the pads. Where foliage would allow, we rounded out the pad to make a fuller image.
Before [well nearly before. We forgot to take a photo at the start]
After [ well, not quite as he’s still to finish it!]
This is what he left behind for me to clean up 🙂
It’s got 5 trunks if you count the dead one. For some reason I haven’t taken a photo of the actual new front. The tree needs to spin slightly more clockwise to bring all the trunks into view.With some filling out, and some added shari put on the boring straight sections on the trunk, it might actually sell 🙂
This big Hornbeam was field grown for 8-9 years. It has been in this pot for a few years not just getting a clip and grow approach. Next year will see some clearing out done to define the future structure.
Some of Frankie’s and Phil’s trees in the garden. I haven’t a clue who owns what, so I’ll just put them all together. Some are still pretty raw and have yet to be styled. Phil likes to get a compact tree before doing the initial styling.
Scot’s Pine
Yew
Large Juniper
Chinese Elm
Small ones on a gravel tray.
The Next generation, trays of cutting from some of the best varieties.
and on my escallonia too.
Scots Pine
Cotoneaster
Bonsai Eejit 