Thank god for this video. I have an imported Chinese elm that I haven't known what to do with for the last two years. This summer I chopped about 60% of the trunk off the top leaving one curve, much like the tree in this video. It had that hideous S curve spiral thing that looks so contrived so I made the decision to finally chop it back. After watching this video, I now know exactly what to do from this point. Thank you for such an easy to understand and comprehensive Chinese elm video. This really has been the simplest and most to the point video I've seen on this species.
thank you so much for this video, it's actually the first video of yours that I've watched, thanks to the YT algorithm for making me discover this wonderful channel...I absolutely have to see your other videos hehe🙏
Incredible video - thank you. I found this technique applied to beech in one of Harry Harrington's books. You can also snip the terminal leaf in half. I can confirm this works very well on this species in UK climate. Thanks again 👍
I have done this technique (well almost the same way) with my Green Island Ficus! Works great but gotta watch the tree cuz if u do it too soon especially in Michigan you will be like 1-2 inches of dieback. So it's slower for the ficus than what you showed for the Elm.. Once I defoliate and do a twig trim I'm gonna try this on my Chinese Elm cuz I had no idea this could work on it. Very similar to the one you were working on not the larger trunk one.. I've tried to just let it do it's thing with clip and grow and the canopy wants to stay flat so this spring I'm considering wiring it up. Like most of my other "bonsai/pre-bonsai". I wanted a clip and grow but this elm just won't work for me and my skill set at this point. I got like 15 rootstock green Jmaples and like 7 grafted cultivars so since I have a good amount all about 3yo I'll have to do some experiment's and practice my clip and grow knowledge on those green Japanese Maples. And hopefully my Hubble's Super Cork Japanese Maple takes off.. gotta get it in the ground in the spring to increase it's health and size.. but the day I got it I stuck on an air-layer so if that takes which looks good so far I'll have 2 of those very hard to get trees..sold out everywhere al year long.. but if anyone wants a Hubbles Super Cork air-layer or graft onto one of my rootstocks let me know under this comment and we will figure out a way to contact eachother..all I'd want is you to pay shipping or pick it up free.. that's if any take and if the air-layer takes but heck u never know especially since those r so hard to find..it's a stick in the ground now and it's already corky.. Lol sorry for rambling I know I can be too much. But I have no one to share my passion with and my wife doesn't get it..she only loves her succlents, which I don't get they all look the same to me honestly...star shapes and necklace shapes that's all I see.. I showed her my succlents and blew her mind what u can do with a few species my few portulacaria afras and new this year a larger crested something. Def no bonsai but I'm treating it as such lol like the pot and soil not tree work cuz it doesn't have branches but developes a wood looking bark with age. Just something different that I seen at a bonsai nursery and luck have it my local Lowes got in one 3 gallon crested ?? succlent and I got it 75% off sweet talking the people who water the lowes plants and they were like anything ubeant plant wise let me know 75% off.. so I got that and a clump of 3 white paper bark birch trees and a cool bloodgood that's going in my garden. OK I'm done..don't hate me lol bless this community 🙏 🙌 😅
sounds like next season ive got some work to do on my chinese elm. its well shaped from a nursery stock but i think i want to increase the canopy volume. Firstly also im trying to keep it alive as i had not had much luck with those in the past. And since the tree arrived about 2 months ago it has only grown a little as it was getting accommodated to its new home.
I arrived at a similar technique. I will leave an extra leaf from what I feel is needed on a shoot and use tweezers to remove the corresponding last bud. Instead of removing leaves at the time of the first round of trimming I remove the inner older leaves at the time of the second trim and so on. I only do it this way because I'm naturally very cautious and the slippery elms I love respond well to it. I'm always stoked to get your insights so I can add more tools to my techniques. Cheers!
Quite informative, Eric. I live in northern New England, overwinter my trees in a greenhouse and usually put them away early November. Would I leave the last flush of growth on the elm through winter then cut back early spring when the tree buds begin to swell, or is it better to do the final cutback in Fall...or even just before the trees are put away for winter)?
I would do it right before you put them away - basically wait for them to be nearly dormant, then pluck the leaves that are left and trim the twigs back to 1-2 buds. If you wait for spring you'll be allowing the tree to put on growth in the wrong place, so basically wasting time.
Thanks Eric for another very informative video. Question: how late in the growing season would you perform these trims for cold winter areas like my Zone 6?
I tend to stop around mid September- about 8 weeks before things start to cool down here. Andrew did a video on this recently- ua-cam.com/video/mZtUIUxWVoc/v-deo.htmlsi=ZuVzwN2vWsasvSwm
This one is so good I had to watch it twice and save it to my bonsai playlist. Wonder why it doesn’t work well on zelkova? How about a followup blog post with a list of which trees this works with and which it doesn’t.
Good stuff. As long as you have an alternating leaf pattern and a lot of flushes of growth, during the season, this should work really well. Crepe Myrtle don’t have the alternate leaf pattern but respond well to this technique for me.
Ah, yeah didn't think of them. The technique would be different slightly on a paired-leaf species, but should yield similar results, I just haven't tried it much yet.
I have watched this video three times now beginning to end. SO great! One question: What kind of elm is it. In some shots, it looks like a Chinese Elm; in other, more grown-out shots, it looks like a Siberian.
@@Bonsaify Siberian Elms have larger leaves than Chinese Elms. They're pretty plentiful in my area (Waterloo area of Ontario, Canada) and so I have a bunch. I really like them.
Hi and Thanks! I am in 7a in the mid atlantic. I worry that if I werer to try many of the instructions on your videos in my region at the same time of year it would be a disaster- for instance pruning an elm in December in Maryland would be bad. Any way to address this discrepancy?
The Dec pruning in this video is actually just a fall cleanup. I don't live in a cold climate so not sure how to advise you - but if the tree is already going/gone dormant then on elms at least you can trim the twigs. (winter pruning isn't always a good idea on other species.) Note that looking at the condition of the tree shown in the video in Dec and comparing that to the date you normally see the same species look similar in your climate would be a good solution. (e.g. trim in your climate when the leaves are mostly done with fall color and are dropping.)
I loved this video. Very nice tips. But you don't need to add music to it. I was fighting with my phone to muted when there was that repetitive music and unmuted when you were talking. 😅
Thanks for the comment. I've been leaving music off some videos more recently particularly when there are no time-lapses - but the alternative is just dead audio. I guess that's what you prefer...but it seems weird to me. Maybe some ambient noises.
Haha, of course not. I've acquired the attention span of a toddler myself. I'm fairly new to this hobby (2 years) and I don't yet have many trees in ramification stage so I'm just gauging how long different things take time.
Yes - although i'm most familiar with Chinese elm, cork elm and Texas Cedar Elm. Seiju may or may not work - I imagine it would. As for other species - as long as they are equally vigorous I'd say it'll work.
Thank god for this video. I have an imported Chinese elm that I haven't known what to do with for the last two years. This summer I chopped about 60% of the trunk off the top leaving one curve, much like the tree in this video. It had that hideous S curve spiral thing that looks so contrived so I made the decision to finally chop it back. After watching this video, I now know exactly what to do from this point. Thank you for such an easy to understand and comprehensive Chinese elm video. This really has been the simplest and most to the point video I've seen on this species.
Love it, you are one of if not the best online bonsai mentors.
thank you so much for this video, it's actually the first video of yours that I've watched, thanks to the YT algorithm for making me discover this wonderful channel...I absolutely have to see your other videos hehe🙏
Thsnks for the video and the information,I'm gonna aplply in my elms.
Incredible video - thank you. I found this technique applied to beech in one of Harry Harrington's books. You can also snip the terminal leaf in half. I can confirm this works very well on this species in UK climate.
Thanks again 👍
Excellent video, so much information packed into nine minutes. Great videography too, thanks.
Crazy how fast These guys develop, I am growing a few if them in the field. When I dig them out i‘ll be sure to Give this a try
I have done this technique (well almost the same way) with my Green Island Ficus! Works great but gotta watch the tree cuz if u do it too soon especially in Michigan you will be like 1-2 inches of dieback. So it's slower for the ficus than what you showed for the Elm..
Once I defoliate and do a twig trim I'm gonna try this on my Chinese Elm cuz I had no idea this could work on it. Very similar to the one you were working on not the larger trunk one..
I've tried to just let it do it's thing with clip and grow and the canopy wants to stay flat so this spring I'm considering wiring it up. Like most of my other "bonsai/pre-bonsai". I wanted a clip and grow but this elm just won't work for me and my skill set at this point. I got like 15 rootstock green Jmaples and like 7 grafted cultivars so since I have a good amount all about 3yo I'll have to do some experiment's and practice my clip and grow knowledge on those green Japanese Maples. And hopefully my Hubble's Super Cork Japanese Maple takes off.. gotta get it in the ground in the spring to increase it's health and size.. but the day I got it I stuck on an air-layer so if that takes which looks good so far I'll have 2 of those very hard to get trees..sold out everywhere al year long.. but if anyone wants a Hubbles Super Cork air-layer or graft onto one of my rootstocks let me know under this comment and we will figure out a way to contact eachother..all I'd want is you to pay shipping or pick it up free.. that's if any take and if the air-layer takes but heck u never know especially since those r so hard to find..it's a stick in the ground now and it's already corky..
Lol sorry for rambling I know I can be too much. But I have no one to share my passion with and my wife doesn't get it..she only loves her succlents, which I don't get they all look the same to me honestly...star shapes and necklace shapes that's all I see.. I showed her my succlents and blew her mind what u can do with a few species my few portulacaria afras and new this year a larger crested something. Def no bonsai but I'm treating it as such lol like the pot and soil not tree work cuz it doesn't have branches but developes a wood looking bark with age. Just something different that I seen at a bonsai nursery and luck have it my local Lowes got in one 3 gallon crested ?? succlent and I got it 75% off sweet talking the people who water the lowes plants and they were like anything ubeant plant wise let me know 75% off.. so I got that and a clump of 3 white paper bark birch trees and a cool bloodgood that's going in my garden.
OK I'm done..don't hate me lol bless this community 🙏 🙌 😅
Very nice. Thanks for showing us your technique.
sounds like next season ive got some work to do on my chinese elm. its well shaped from a nursery stock but i think i want to increase the canopy volume. Firstly also im trying to keep it alive as i had not had much luck with those in the past. And since the tree arrived about 2 months ago it has only grown a little as it was getting accommodated to its new home.
Thats an awesome work...do you still use the same soil mix or changed the combination of perlite, cococoor, akadama, lava rock
Amazing!!! Great video!
Bruuuuh. Incredible.
I arrived at a similar technique. I will leave an extra leaf from what I feel is needed on a shoot and use tweezers to remove the corresponding last bud. Instead of removing leaves at the time of the first round of trimming I remove the inner older leaves at the time of the second trim and so on. I only do it this way because I'm naturally very cautious and the slippery elms I love respond well to it. I'm always stoked to get your insights so I can add more tools to my techniques. Cheers!
Slippery elms? Wow, had to look that up. Learn something new every day.
Thank you ......!!! So nice......!!!
Going to try that with a few elms this year thanks!
Informative as ever Eric.
Quite informative, Eric. I live in northern New England, overwinter my trees in a greenhouse and usually put them away early November. Would I leave the last flush of growth on the elm through winter then cut back early spring when the tree buds begin to swell, or is it better to do the final cutback in Fall...or even just before the trees are put away for winter)?
I would do it right before you put them away - basically wait for them to be nearly dormant, then pluck the leaves that are left and trim the twigs back to 1-2 buds. If you wait for spring you'll be allowing the tree to put on growth in the wrong place, so basically wasting time.
Thanks Eric for another very informative video. Question: how late in the growing season would you perform these trims for cold winter areas like my Zone 6?
I tend to stop around mid September- about 8 weeks before things start to cool down here. Andrew did a video on this recently- ua-cam.com/video/mZtUIUxWVoc/v-deo.htmlsi=ZuVzwN2vWsasvSwm
@@Bonsaify Thank you, that was helpful...and what a beautiful birch!
Very very good video! Thank you!!
Such a well put together video for Chinese elm development! 🌳 I’m going to apply this to the corkbark elm I bought from you!
สวยมากๆ ชอบมากครับ
This one is so good I had to watch it twice and save it to my bonsai playlist. Wonder why it doesn’t work well on zelkova? How about a followup blog post with a list of which trees this works with and which it doesn’t.
Thank you 🌳
Would this work on ficus trees, too? I’ve got a ~15 yr old ficus microcarpa that I want to get denser.
Good stuff. As long as you have an alternating leaf pattern and a lot of flushes of growth, during the season, this should work really well. Crepe Myrtle don’t have the alternate leaf pattern but respond well to this technique for me.
Ah, yeah didn't think of them. The technique would be different slightly on a paired-leaf species, but should yield similar results, I just haven't tried it much yet.
What fertilizer did you use on these trees. How much and how frequently.
A mix of Miracle gro at a low dilution and BioGold pellets. I couldn't say exactly how much.
great/thoughtful , as usual. Are you feeding any differently when using this technique?
Nope, but a good feeding schedule is definitely important.
thanks for the tips
So helpful - wonderful results! How would your technique change if the inner 2 leaves had been damaged by e.g. insects?
I don't think it would change, unless that had adversely affected the health of the tree. (e.g. if it stopped growing.)
@@Bonsaify Thanks so much!
I have watched this video three times now beginning to end. SO great!
One question: What kind of elm is it. In some shots, it looks like a Chinese Elm; in other, more grown-out shots, it looks like a Siberian.
It is a chinese elm - but it's the regular corkbark variety: 'corticosa' not Seiju or Catlin. I've actually never worked with Siberian Elm.
@@Bonsaify Siberian Elms have larger leaves than Chinese Elms. They're pretty plentiful in my area (Waterloo area of Ontario, Canada) and so I have a bunch. I really like them.
Hi and Thanks! I am in 7a in the mid atlantic. I worry that if I werer to try many of the instructions on your videos in my region at the same time of year it would be a disaster- for instance pruning an elm in December in Maryland would be bad. Any way to address this discrepancy?
The Dec pruning in this video is actually just a fall cleanup. I don't live in a cold climate so not sure how to advise you - but if the tree is already going/gone dormant then on elms at least you can trim the twigs. (winter pruning isn't always a good idea on other species.) Note that looking at the condition of the tree shown in the video in Dec and comparing that to the date you normally see the same species look similar in your climate would be a good solution. (e.g. trim in your climate when the leaves are mostly done with fall color and are dropping.)
@@Bonsaify thanks very much...love your videos-so informative!
Great job! I am a Texas resident- do I leave my elm bonsai outside or bring it inside?
I'd say outside - but keep it from freezing below 28F.
@@Bonsaify Thanks you so much.
My question is referring to the winter season. Elms stays outside or inside in winter?
Outside - but all bonsai need protection from temps below 28F.
Do you think this same technique would work on deciduous cottneaster?
Probably - but I haven't tried it. The vigor of the plant is part of the key - it needs to be exploding with growth.
I loved this video. Very nice tips.
But you don't need to add music to it. I was fighting with my phone to muted when there was that repetitive music and unmuted when you were talking. 😅
Thanks for the comment. I've been leaving music off some videos more recently particularly when there are no time-lapses - but the alternative is just dead audio. I guess that's what you prefer...but it seems weird to me. Maybe some ambient noises.
Looks like you're using BioGold as your fertilizer. Is that correct? Any other organic fertilizer you use along with the BioGold?
Rarely fish emulsion. I use a dilute mineral fertilizer like DynaGro also.
Muy bueno
How long did it take you, or would take without filming, going through the tree?
Well, it's a pretty small tree. I'd say about 30 minutes each time, maybe up to an hour toward the end.
Ok, thanks. Around what I thought. The magic of editing made it look quicker😅😂
Lol, I don't think anyone would watch these videos if they were 4-6 hours long, like the amount of work that's sometimes depicted!
Haha, of course not. I've acquired the attention span of a toddler myself. I'm fairly new to this hobby (2 years) and I don't yet have many trees in ramification stage so I'm just gauging how long different things take time.
these techniques should work on any variety of elm right?
Yes - although i'm most familiar with Chinese elm, cork elm and Texas Cedar Elm. Seiju may or may not work - I imagine it would. As for other species - as long as they are equally vigorous I'd say it'll work.
INSANE😃
Eric, would you apply this technique, or some version of it, to a much older, more established Chinese Elm?
Yes, in fact I did it to the Chinese elm in this video prior to starting the work shown in the video: ua-cam.com/video/4ESps4CojOs/v-deo.html
What about ficus?
Have you tried this on Korean Hornbeam?
Yes - see the end of the video....
@@Bonsaify I commented before the video was finished.
안녕하세요,나는대한민국에서분재나무을만들고있습니다,영상을잘보았습니다,감사합니다😊🤗👏👏👏👍
Wow wonderful Bonsai video ❤❤❤😮😮😮😊😊😊 what is the name of this plant 🤔🤔🤔