Meetings

Warren Hill came to see us and talk to us at our meeting May 2nd. As usual he was interesting and informative about the tree he was demonstrating and about many other things as well.

He was very obviously pleased and in awe of the tree he was to work on. He introduced it as a 400 year old Colorado Spruce (Picea pungens).

Warren selected this tree from four trees collected in the Rockies by Rich Eyre of Foxwillow Pines in Woodstock. Rich has graciously donated this tree to the demonstration at our meeting and the finished tree to the Chicago Botanic Garden Collection.

Warren explained that the tree, being very old, was brittle and needed to be handled carefully and respectfully. He explained there would be no major changes and that the tree will dictate what can be done to it. He also talked about the importance of keeping collected material of this age and this value in the original collecting box for an absolute minimum of three years before doing anything to it.

He talked about the tree and its environment. It is tolerant of water and needs highly saturated alluvial soil - even bog conditions. It wants its leaves washed daily.

He then talked about the qualities of this specific tree. There is a lot of dead shari at the base. The lower third is the most important part of this tree. As we looked at it, there was a dead root hanging over the outer edge of the box. (If the tree was mine, I would kill to be able to retain that root hanging over the edge when it was repotted in a year or so.)

At the beginning of the demo the tree had two apexes and some branching problems but nature and environment and Rich Eyre had provided a tree with great potential with a minimum of work.

In the beginning Shig Ito was given the task of jining a very long back branch while Warren worked on finishing the shari on the front side. Most of this was to connect a shari from the dead roots to a dead spot further up the trunk. This would improve the design without doing harm to the tree. So far there was little done to the branches further up the tree although Warren was already talking about a low branch which was very long and too straight and moving off to the left too far.

At this time, Warren pointed out that the tree had borer problems in the past and perhaps had them even now.

This led to a conversation about borers and their treatment. At one time, we used Lindane but this is no longer available. Warren suggested squirting straight Malathion in the hole and plugging the hole with chewing gum. The Malathion turns into a gas in the shaft or shafts drilled by the borer which kills the larva which is doing the drilling. Beyond that there is not much that can be done.

We then got off onto a pot for this beauty. Warren thinks this tree needs a very special pot. He suggests a gray somewhat deep pot either an oval one or a rectangular pot that is slightly ornate. He joked about John Naka who would pick up the telephone and call Japan and order a pot from Japan.

We then started to talk about soil. I will cover this conversation in the July newsletter.

Next Warren asks who knows how to trim spruce. The answer is bud pinching, of course. He recommends bud pinching in such a way to drive the energy from the tips of the branches back into the tree.

Finally he asked what we should do about a little jinned branch near the apex. Should it be removed? I was shocked. It was almost as important for the balance of the tree composition as the base was to the overall tree.

You should look up Warren's web site. The address is warrenhillbonsai.com. This web site has some pictures of some wonderful trees plus other information. It is worth looking at for the trees alone.