A better title for this post might be, “I Hope These Steps are Moving my American Beech into Refinement,” but that is a few too many words.
Most available literature on beech bonsai addresses European beech, Fagus sylvatica, but I have been experimenting with its larger-leafed cousin, Fagus grandifolia, to see what bonsai methods are effective for this American native species.
I’ve only been at this beech game for a few short years, so none of my American beech trees are highly developed. The most ramified beech I have, above, happened to be found and collected with most of those branches.
After my beech recover from collection I apply a conservative route to pruning. I allow the buds to extend fully and the leaves to harden off before pruning back to two leaves per extension. This method allows the tree to build a significant amount of energy through the first part of the growing season, and put that energy toward growing strong roots and buds for the next season.
This year, I have a couple of trees ready to start the next phase of development — building the fine twigging and ramification that will give them a look of maturity. The tree above, our subject tree, clearly needs many more fine branches to build a nice silhouette and crown. As it grows through each upcoming season, I want to discourage course growth, and do what I can to promote shorter internodes and back budding further toward the interior of the tree.
With these goals in mind, I am starting to test pinching back as the buds start to extend, rather than waiting until leaves harden off to prune. While this work is more delicate and refined in its execution, I consider it the more aggressive of the two techniques.
From the perspective of the tree, pinching back is more demanding. Pruning after hardening off allows for energy recovery before pruning happens and uses the path of less resistance – fully extending new branches from active buds. Pinching requires the tree to put forth additional energy to push new growth from dormant buds, perhaps even before the first leaves have hardened.
The photo above shows our subject tree with buds starting to open. You can see that a few of the strongest buds, unsurprisingly at the apex, are pushing out much faster than others. This is normal, and you should expect to work on pinching back buds on the same tree as they extend over a couple weeks time.
Pinching back involves a delicate pinch or cut of each bud as it pushes out enough to see the separation of leaves. I prefer to use a pair of sharp scissors.
The bud shown here is longer than ideal. If you can catch it a little earlier, that much the better, but this slightly elongated growth makes it easier to see what we are looking for in a photo. Once you can find the spot above the second leaf, cut it off there and leave just two leaves to expand. Pinching (or cutting) the growth in this way will shorten the internode and force the tree to push growth from buds that might not have grown otherwise.
With repeated implementation, this method will build the ramification we seek. The two buds shown above now have four leaves. A bud will form at the base of each, and next year we will have eight, then sixteen and so forth. If the method also encourages back budding, we will really be on our way to creating fine twigging and a more refined tree.
Another result that should come with greater ramification is a reduction in leaf size, which is needed badly. At this early stage of this process, the tree is doing all it can with the few leaves I allowed it to keep. These leaves have grown large and disproportionate to the tree, but I have faith that when there are significantly more leaves they will be a good bit smaller. If this tree has, say, a hundred leaves now, it should be able to do very well with 200 slightly smaller leaves next year, or 400 even smaller leaves the year after that.
This may be an over simplified way of thinking about ramification and leaf reduction, but if the tree continues to live in the same size pot, with the same limited resources as it compounds the number leaves, the logic tracks.
I look forward to watching this and other beech in my collection develop, and I look forward to sharing the results with you.
Bonsai Iterate 
Reblogged this on Wolf's Birding and Bonsai Blog.
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