Hawthorn: Pruning a Tree to Nurture Explosive Potential [Bonsai]

Check out my latest bonsai creation. It's the end of winter now, and I am unveiling the results on a Hawthorn tree that I recently pruned.

The above photos are depictions of my tree at the end of last summer. This tree is already outstanding, and will require very small changes (if any) to the overall style of the tree. Most of the pruning will be focused on removing dead wood, shortening branches, and removing crowded branches.

Since I forgot to take a before photo prior to working on the tree in early March, you'll have to endure staring at another of my painted renditions of my tree. I draw the basic tree shape in black. The buds shown in green are estimates of where they were most likely developing when I pruned the tree.

Before any style choices are made, I always prune off the dead branch ends first. Only living tissue should be allowed to remain on the tree. Anything without a bud on it can be considered dead in most cases. Fortunately this tree had very little die-back.

Next I look for overly long branches that disrupt the space proportions that I want for the tree. Super straight and long branches with few buds on it, are generally not as desired as short bending branches with many buds.

On a long branch, I count the buds it has, and select a place to cut that leaves at least two buds along the rest of the branch.

Finally, crowded branches, and branches heading in awkward directions can be removed completely flush to the wood, so it looks like it never existed. Buds can also be scraped off gently. Anything growing too close to a Y-shape in the branches is going to cause too much thickening in the wood and crowd the area. The thicker the wood, the further away the competing branches and buds should be kept clear.

In red, I approximate where the cuts were made. Usually I try to cut as close to the buds as possible without damaging the bud. This makes it look like the branch will continue seamlessly into the new bud where the branch will extend into new stems and leaves.

The new design is much cleaner and simplified. Although it may seem a bit boring compared to its previous shape, we'll not have to wait long for the tree to correct that.

Every year a tree is correctly pruned, it will develop thicker and thicker growth because it will bud from more and more locations. The tree will look more and more wild every Summer. And every Winter, I will tame it down slightly, choosing the best properties for the tree to retain. In this way the tree will evolve into something better every year.

Just don't let it go wild for too many years, or it may mutant into a totally unworkable freak of nature.

Now let's check out how this tree has developed after it awoke from dormancy.

Watching the first few buds swell every morning is a lottery show I really enjoy waking up early to see.

The shortest branch opens first. Being closest to the roots, it receives energy to grow first when the slow sap inside starts to loosen up.

More buds are swelling to full size.

Aha! And here we are. A tree in Spring.

Now that the leaves have formed, I will be pinching back the stems every few days. I pinch stems down to the first or second set of leaves to encourage growth of other buds that haven't finished opening. This forces the tree to support all branches more evenly, rather than growing super long branches on top, and letting the low branches die away.

Hawthorn, as its name suggests, also develops sharp thorns. This tree has the most dangerous thorns of all my trees, because the wood is very hard like a metal needle. After many painful injuries while handling this tree in the past, I'll be pruning off any thorns that I find.

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Photos in this post are all #originalworks by @creativetruth, unless stated otherwise.

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