Here are some winter images.
First up the tree as it came out of the airpot it has been in for many many years. Took about an hour to comb the roots to this point.
20200201_145514 by BrendanR2012, on FlickrThen out came the electric saw to separate the root ball:
20200201_145526 by BrendanR2012, on FlickrSawed through some really thick roots in there, but they were realtively easy to work back to a point where I had plenty of fibrous roots and yet it could fit into the pot
20200201_145535 by BrendanR2012, on FlickrPot is quite large for now:
20200201_145551 by BrendanR2012, on FlickrAfter I potted it up I needed to create some sort of retaining system to keep the mounded-up soil in place around the trunk base. I'd usually use moss BUT the birds don't let me do that anymore. Anything with moss on is picked over within a day. And if it rains before I can sort it out the soil just runs off and any exposed roots are potentially harmed. Hence the funny strips of drywall tape.
20200213_085412 by BrendanR2012, on FlickrTHis is the side view before I worked on it. You can see there are 4 trunks. Not good for "bonsai" according to the rules. But the wonder of this tree is that that from just about all angles the front 3 trunks hide the fourth.
Then the tricky bit was deciding what needed to be chopped and what needed to be kept. I reduced some of the trunks and thinned and wired the twiggy bits.
Here's the "front" as it currently stands:
20200213_152717 by BrendanR2012, on Flickr
