by George Buehler

The basic idea appeared to be sound, the timing was correct, I had all the supplies I needed; but once again Mother Nature had her way, and this experiment was a failure. However, I really can't say the experiment was a failure since I did learn a number of things in the process. It was a failure simply because I didn't get what I had wanted. But I get ahead of myself, so let's start from the beginning.

It all started when I got my copy of the February 2006 Mohawk Valley Bonsai Society newsletter. In this newsletter, the editor, Pauline Muth, was writing about what she was doing at that time of the year. She had the following statement: 'I am taking thin rooted cuttings and taping them together to form mame and shohin. By merging 5 young seedlings together, I get quick results and very nice nebari'.

Of course, my interest was immediately drawn to the thought that perhaps I could get a nice shohin tree quicker than what would normally be the process of planting whips in the ground for several years.

As a lot of you know, I have a great interest in shohin bonsai and am always looking for a quick way to get a larger caliper trunk. If this procedure would work, I thought it would be worth the effort. I had several questions regarding the actual procedure. Therefore, I sent Pauline an e-mail asking her for more details. After a couple of e-mails back and forth, I had what I thought was enough information to begin. I had a number of pomegranate cuttings I had started the previous season that were being overwintered. Poms are slow at getting any girth on them since they can't be planted in the ground in our area. And even if they are planted in large florist pots, they are still slow to gain a good trunk size. So, I didn't hesitate to start the experiment.

THE TECHNIQUE

Take five or six whips that have little branching, and remove the potting media from the roots. Using florist tape, start at the base of the trunks and start taping the grouping together. Continue taping the grouping until you reach the point where the first branch should be. Bend out one of the whips and continue taping until you reach the point where you want the second branch. Bend this second branch out and continue taping. This procedure is continued until all the whips except one are now taped together. The remaining whip is used for the apex. The tree is then wired just like a regular bonsai except that more care is used to bend the whips.

THE EXPERIMENT

I decided that I would use 7 starts for this experiment (See Picture 1). They ranged in height from about 10 to 14". I then had to decide which start I would use for the number one branch, which would be the number two branch, etc. Actually, I couldn't tell much difference in any of the starts; therefore, I just tried to fit them together the best I could. Although all the starts had about the same trunk thickness, one was slightly larger than the rest, so I used that one as the apex tree. I put labels on each of the trees designating the various branches. I also cut off all leaves up to about 5"(Picture 2).

I then refitted all the starts together and wrapped them with florist tape (Picture 3). I think this is where the problems started. The technique calls for using whips with little branching. The whips I used were actually started for a different purpose and, because of that, I had let them branch at will. If I tried this experiment again, I would make certain to be diligent in stopping the branching. If you examine Picture 2, you will see that the starts I had were not straight at all. Because of the way pomegranates grow, they have a tendency to grow stronger shoots on one side of a leaf pair than on the other. When I cut off the branches, I ended up with whips that had "dog legs" on them .Trying to straighten them (which was needed to ensure the whips fused) was a difficult job. Although these whips were only one growing season, the "wood" of the pomegranate is somewhat brittle and if I tried too hard to straighten out each whip, I knew I ran the risk of snapping them – probably around the "dog leg".

In trying to wrap them, I ran into two problems. The first was the "dog leg". If the whips had been straight, they would have fit together better. However, since this was not the case, when I put together the bundle, I actually had voids where the "dog legs" were located. The second problem was also caused by the "dog leg". In trying to tie the whips together, as I wrapped the bundle, I knew that I had to wrap them tightly to bring the "dog legs" together; and, as I did, the whips actually moved out of position I had wanted them in. In looking back, if I had had a helper that may have lessened the problem and improved on the end result. However, since I didn't, I held the bundle together with one hand and wrapped the florist tape with the other and I'm sure this caused the movement of the whips.

Picture 3 shows the result I obtained. I then used 1.5 mm aluminum wire to hold the whips together and hopefully straighten the bundle (Picture 4). In examining the bundle, it appeared that all the trunks were touching and the bundle itself was fairly straight.

After I reached about 5 inches above the root mass, I bent out the first branch, and then wrapped the remaining whips until I reached the spot where I wanted the second branch. Then I continued on up the bundle until I had only one whip which I was going to use as the apex. After I bent out the various branches, I used 1.0 aluminum wire to hold the various "branches" in place.

After doing this wiring, I planted the bundle in Miracle-Gro® potting mix in a one gallon florist pot. I put this in a shady area for several weeks and then placed it on a growing bench.

All the above was done in early April of 2006. By the end of that growing season, the new tree was doing very well (Picture 5). Notice the white line pointing to a flower bud, showing that at least this whip was growing well. I did cut off all flower buds as they showed up for the first year.

At the end of the 2006 growing season, since the bundle was growing so well, I decided to take the florist tape off to see how the fusion was progressing. This was my first disappointment with the experiment. Two of the whips in the bundle had partially fused to each other but they had not fused to the main bundle. Another problem I saw was that the "dog leg" joints had expanded faster than the stem above and below the joint (See Picture 6a – this is the back of bundle). I also noticed that the branch on the left (on the right in Picture 6a), was about the same height as the opposite branch, giving the appearance of a bar branch. I

The tree was taken to a friend's greenhouse for the winter. The soil was kept slightly damp, received fertilizer (Miracle-Gro full strength) several times throughout the winter. A Hibiscus was also in the greenhouse that apparently had white flies on it. I'm no expert on bugs, but I can tell you that whiteflies simply love pomegranates. When this infestation was discovered, a schedule was set up to spray all the trees to eradicate the whiteflies. It took most of the winter to finally get rid of the infestation.

The 2007 and 2008 growing seasons were uneventful. I unwrapped the bundle once or twice during each of these growing seasons to see if there was any more fusion of the two offending trees. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be. Each time I unwrapped the bundle I tried a different wrapping technique to see if I could force the fusion ( Picture 7). They seemed determined not to want to fuse, no matter how I tied or forced them together.

During one unwrapping, I used a grafting knife to remove any bark where the bundle was to (hopefully) fuse. I scraped it down to the whitish cambium layer. After the scraping, I wrapped it with wet raffia, wrapped the raffia with electrical tape, and used two cable ties to draw the bundle together. At the end of the growing season (2008) I removed the ties, tape and raffia and found the two offending whips still had not fused. There also was an indentation in the loose whip where the cable tie had drawn the whips together (See white arrow in Picture 8). However, I figured that with time, that would disappear.

In studying the plant, trying to figure out what if anything I could do to make the bundle look like a tree, it occurred to me that part of the problem was the one whip that went to the left (see Picture 9 with the reference whip marked in red). This whip and the one in front of it were the ones that hadn't fused. I found that in poking around the two whips, they had a weak fusion between the two but with mild movement, they came apart easily. I then decided that I would remove the marked whip and try to fuse the remaining whip. So in early 2009, I decided to give it one more try and cut the marked whip at the soil level. I pushed the remaining whips together, used wire to hold them and wrapped the bundle. At the first of October, I unwrapped the bundle with a hope of success. When I examined the bundle, (Picture 10), there was some fusion at the bottom, but not what I expected, since there was still no fusion at the top. As I was taking the pictures, I decided to call off this experiment. However, my house general suggested that I either cut off the final loose whip or try one more time to get the fusion needed. Although I wanted to call off the project, since I had so much time invested, I thought that one more try at fusion over the winter wouldn't hurt. In looking at the voids between the trees, I knew I had to take drastic steps to get the fusion.

In looking over some of my bonsai magazines for ideas of future articles, I saw what I thought might work. I used a branch bender to bring the tree together (see Picture 11), used both cable ties and wire (inside cushioning plastic tubing), and used a wrapping that the horse industry uses, to hold the mess together.

I plan on putting the bundle under lights for the winter, then check later in the 2010 growing season to see if the one whip has fused. .I'm not certain that the fusion process will work when the plant is semi-dormant. That is the reason I would have to wait until mid 2010 growing season to find out.

CONCLUSIONS

What conclusions can we draw from this "experiment"? Based on the work Doug Phillips did on fusing trident maple whips (see January 2009 newsletter), it should be possible to take almost any type of whip and get them to fuse together. This would be limited to plants that don't have a lot of branching, and probably wouldn't work on the evergreen varieties.

If someone is considering trying this technique, the most important item is to use whips that are straight and don't have any "knees" as my pomegranate whips had. It is also important, when making the branches, to ensure that when they are sufficiently bent out, they don't in fact interfere with the fusion process - as my one whip did.

It would take at least 3 to 5 years to get anything that resembled a bonsai and didn't look like a bunch of whips put together. This means that the whips need to be planted into a large florist pot, or better yet, planted directly in the ground.

A very intensive fertilization schedule should also be followed to get rapid growth and subsequent quick swelling of the trunks.