I started working on an olive bonsai last summer. After taking the tree home and letting new shoots grow out, I wired the ones I needed and removed the rest. One year later, I’m doing the same thing.
Olive bonsai – one year in training
The idea is to establish the main branches. Once they are wired, I let them grow so they can thicken.
I also started working on the deadwood. The top several inches of the trunk were straight and uninteresting, especially compared with the lower areas of the trunk. I’d put off the work as I know that olive deadwood can be hard. Boon showed me a tip to make the work easier.
Using hammer and chisel on olive deadwood
I liked the hammer and chisel technique as the wood mostly flaked off along the wood grain. This helps maintain a natural feeling and reduces the number of tool marks left behind. I removed about 2/3 of the straight section – more will come off in the future. Here’s the tree after reducing the deadwood and wiring the main branches.
After cutback, wiring and deadwood work – 17.5″
For now the branches have a lot of growing to do. I’ll work on the deadwood again at some point and will repot the tree either this winter or next.
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Gary R Croft says
Jonas,
How old is the Olive that you are working on. And was it from ordinary nursery stock?
Gary Croft. Melbourne/Australia
Jim Hughes says
The picture with the chisel helped me see how large this tree is. Without that picture I thought the olive was a small shohin.
Jonas Dupuich says
Hi Gary – no idea how old the tree is. It looks like it could be a quarter section of a larger tree that’s been split. It’s from collected material from a vendor at a bonsai event.
Jonas Dupuich says
Hi Jim – the tree is 17.5″ from the base of the trunk to the top of the deadwood.
paul3636 says
Are olive trees tropical???
When you use a chisel on the dead wood are the roots hurt in any way???
Jonas Dupuich says
Hi Paul – good question about the roots. As the tree is well rooted and didn’t move around while I worked, I expect to the roots to remain intact.
As for olive climate, I don’t think of them as tropical as they like cool winters down to 35 degrees and can survive colder: http://olivecenter.ucdavis.edu/learn/best-practices
Janet Roth says
Jonas, all the talk about tree design and bonsai technique are well and good – but the real issue is: when is this dragon, the tip of whose claw we see, going to break free from the pot and go on to destroy civilization as we know it?