Saturday, January 24, 2009

350 year old mountain hemlock

I recently acquired this very old mountain hemlock with enormous potential through a trade with a good friend. Some styling and pruning has been done already, with a little more left to do before the tree's finished form is "realized". The tree itself is perfectly healthy. However, the lower trunk has suffered some considerable rot in the past, and had to be carved out to the hardwood. As far as appearances go, it really isn't very nice to look at, at all, and a solution is in the works. Some have suggested using a type of tree putty (the kind used for sealing cuts and wounds) to fill in the carved out area, then apply hemlock bark as naturally as possible over the fresh and sticky tree putty, hopefully concealing all evidence of the 'wound'. Others have suggested a more esoteric method, by searching out the lifelines of the tree, carefully peeling them off the trunk, wrapping them in sphagnum moss/soil etc, then removing the unwanted lower trunk and starting over again with a shorter tree. I'm not sure i like either.....perhaps I'll try the tree seal method first.......

Peter

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