Dancing by Myself
Örnsköldsvik is a town in the north of Sweden that I visited on a business trip towards the end of June 1998. I did not have any tools and was not intending to collect anything, but as I rocked this old pine, it moved... It turned out that the complete root system could be lifted by simply removing a couple of minor rocks. Guess if the flight attendants were upset about my hand luggage on the two flights home…
It was possible to fit the complete root system directly in a bonsai pot. I used 100 percent sharp sand as poting medium. I only disturbed the root system enough to allow water to penetrate the dense root mat. The plant seems starved but never the less very healthy. It did not seem to notice the move south! This photo is from the spring of 99, it is hard to see but the tree bloomed profusely.
In the spring of 2000, the roots were very well established and I wired and shaped the complete tree. That was fun and easy work. Long thin branches will only small tuffs of green at the ends are very easy to wire. Some modification was necessary of the trunks so I used heavy wire. In order to compact the tops, severe bending was required and I used raffia as protection.
I tried to shape an elegant double trunk that perhaps could convey the feeling of a dancing couple. I think the result look funny, but not too tree like. To much foliage is hiding the trunks.
In August of the same year, I had separated the foliage better and was quite pleased with the result. It is funny how one can think that a tree looks good until you look at a photograph...
In this case, the photo clearly reveals the monotonous straight section on the top half of the main trunk. The right-hand foliage also seems very busy and not at all as sparse and elegant as I thought. Also the lower apex is to hidden.
In 2001, the tree got a new and slightly smaller pot. The root ball still needs to be reduced but one long heavy root is very dominant and I prefer to progress slowly. Later in the summer, more heavy wire was used to give some motion to the main trunk. I used guy wires to separate and twist the trunks in relationship to each other. The photo is from the end of July. Only minor pinching is going on. The needles are slowly becoming longer and some back budding is starting to occur.
Thank you for your interest! It would be very interesting to get your views, on
what could have been done differently, and what I should do with the tree in
the future.