Repotting a collected elm tree

I made a new friend today, Jeff from Mississippi. He said he didn't have a lot of time ,he works in the oil industry in east Texas & he hadn't had a day off since around Thanksgiving & was on his way home. He has four days off & has to be back at work Monday.

Jeff is a relative newcomer to Bonsai & has previously bought some Bonsai, but he has discovered that collecting trees has some perks.
He saw my blog & decided to stop by. He wanted some advice on some trees he had collected.
I was surprised to see the quality of the trees he had dug up. Since he was in a hurry we didn't have much time to talk. So if you read this Jeff call me or email at "rhbonsai@swbell.net"






Jeff gave me one of his trees he had dug up.
He said he often comes across trees around some of the oil well sites.
My wife thinks if you look at it real quick it
resembles a chimp.

This tree has had the main trunk cut & the resulting branches have become two trunks.





























This is a close up of the tree, the
reason for the hand is because I had
already made the cut before I took the picture.



















Well it doesn't resemble a chimp anymore!
I chose to keep the trunk on the left & cut off the one on the right.


























It was a rather large chop to the
trunk. The scar will take up to 3 to 4
yrs. or more to heal over.
There wasn't very many roots but
as you can see the tree has started to
leaf out already.





















The elm tree is potted up, wound sealer put on the scar & now it's left up to the tree to put out enough roots
to sustain it self.
I have added to the potting mix
worm castings,compost,root stimulator & super thrive.




















The trunk I cut off has been potted up with
the same mix & ingredients as the main tree.
The block of wood is used to steady the
trunk because there are no roots to anchor it.
































Basically this trunk is a cutting.
Although a cutting would usually be
about the size of the first branch on
the left of this trunk.
Elms are pretty resilient so I'm
hoping it will put out roots. I have had success with elms and trident maples
of this size before. wish me luck!
Will report on their progress
later.


Wax on.........Wax off