Tree: Cork Oak
Obtained: Won at SBBK
auction, summer 2011.
Training Detail:
- Initally seemingly overall poor health, few dry green/brown
leaves. Has a sacrificial
branch at the top. I covered it in moss (from the workshop trash) and the
moss is still there! Pot is on the crowded raised bed (RB)
with a large vase of water under it - so it should never dry out. In a way
my first bonsai. A good looking semi-styled tree - in a pot. Found out also
this tree is really used for making corks; and the whole twist-off / plastic
cork thing maybe counter intuitively non-green.
- Dec 2011: Awesome. Still no front. Needs to get bigger.
What pot should it get
- July 2012: Cork Oak is a tropical broad-leafed evergreen.
For bonsai it needs shoots to then develop the desired cracky bark. For the
mature look branches should go - up, over, adn then down; also they should
be gnarly and twisty, fighting for light, (not snow-load angled down).Cut
sacrificial branch down by 2/3 - logic: (1) leave it too long and the tree
doesn't grow balanced, the small branches will grow too slowly whle the truck
grows, (2) left too long the cut wound will be that much harder to heal, and
(3) cutting it all off at once would be tramatic/shocking/disruptive to the
chi folw of the tree - energy pathes have been built up over time/habit and
change is hard.
- Aug 2012: Note: Some of the pix below are indexed at <http://www.pic2fly.com/Cork+Bark+Oak+Bonsai.html>.
- 2014: Regretfully this beloved beauty died. Not sure why, my only guess is that irrigation failed and it dried out without my knowing.
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Photos after I had it a few months, specifically July 29, 2011:
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Big 'ol Cork Oak pix I found on the web:
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