EDITOR’S NOTE: Somehow this report by Lee got lost in the ethernet. The pictures that went with this article were published in the March 2009 issue. My appologies to the readers and Lee.

On February 14th Tommy, Earl Cormney, John, Steve, James and myself headed to Doug Philip’s “humble abode”, as Doug calls it, in New Hope, Ky., for the second part of our Fused Trunk Trident Maple Workshop. We soldered the copper wire frames in January and met on Valentine’s Day to attach the trees to the frame. The frames, of varying sizes, were designed to take approximately 75 Trident Maple seedlings, 1/8” diameter and 24 “ tall. After a tour of Doug’s workshop, trees, tool shed and custom built outhouse, we all settled down for a prolonged workshop at 10:00. The object is to attach the seedlings in a spiraled fashion all around the wire frame. Following the curves of the trunk- mimicking frame, the trees were attached with twist ties along the vertical and horizontal wires as close together as feasible. Around 1:00 and 75 trees & 300 twist ties later, I asked Doug if I had enough trees on the frame. Doug said, “are your fingers bleeding yet?” I guess that answered my question, so I added on another 15 trees and 150 more twist ties. And, voila , what is it ? Hopefully, in 10 to 15 years or sooner depending on the weather, fertilizer & growing conditions, I should have a 12-15” tall Trident bonsai with an 8” trunk diameter. This technique greatly reduces the growing time needed for such a tree grown from a single seedling. It is recommended to plant the tree in the ground for at least two years to start the trunk fusing process. The longer it’s left in the ground, the more massive and fused the trunk will become. Notice in the accompanying picture sequence that I potted my tree. When weather permits, I will move it from winter protection to a ground bed for growing on.     

This was a great workshop and surpassed the cutting edge of new bonsai techniques. If you did not attend the workshop you missed an opportunity to break out of the bonsai mold and do something different for a change.    

Many thanks to Doug for offering his time, talents and workshop for this interesting workshop. By the way, in case you were wondering, the process took five hours at a minimum. A couple of the participants took the trees home and finished later in the day.