Shore Pine Design Exercise—Pt. 1
During rewiring a tree is a good time to rethink the design and look for ways to improve it. We gave this Shore Pine that kind of scrutiny this past week.
This is one of our two-part series, which will conclude next week.
Here is the Shore Pine before some changes. Next week we’ll show you what we did. For now, tell us what you’d do…
10 Comments
Very difficult to tell in a 1D photo, but the tree appears to be falling away from us, but I am sure that is not the case in reality… IMO, the crown could use some “air”… And the branches on the left side of the tree all appear to be thick and strong, while the right side appears a bit spindley-er-ish (yes that is a word… kind of- LOL)… And of course I am curious to see what the other side looks like…
You could sit that tree on my bench and I would probably leave the way it is for a decade… It’s a very pretty piece. Were I to venture a guess, it would be that something about the two lowest branches sticking out to the left and right is throwing me off a bit… only thing I could see to fix that is maybe tilt it to the left a smidge and move the main cascading branch a little up or further out from the trunk. Then that little lowest left branch might seem out of place, though. Eager to see what you did with it!
Either trunk chop the front or bring the back branch down a bit
Moe feminine pot and open trunk up more on the top
plant a bit more upright (15 degrees to the right) and lose the 2 bottom branches. Re-wire for the new angle.
Remove lower right branch, shorten long ulpper right branch, tilt whole tree 45 degrees to right. Raise right top slowly to become apex.
I will take a swing at this… imgur link below — red are cuts/branch removal. Green is wiring/shaping.
https://imgur.com/a/kfqP9
Would be nice to see some more views of the tree. May be time for the front to become the back? Just an opinion. John Cantwell
On Mon, Oct 2, 2017 at 6:01 AM, Michael Hagedorn wrote:
> crataegus posted: “During rewiring a tree is a good time to rethink the > design and look for ways to improve it. We gave this Shore Pine that kind > of scrutiny this past week. This is one of our two-part series, which will > conclude next week. Here is the Shore Pine ” >
Change angle in the pot clockwise about 20º or so; remove or reduce the middle branch on the right to open up that area, provide negative space and emphasize sweep of the longest branch on the right. It’s quite possible that the bottom branch could also be removed. New pot; main trunk centerline slightly to the right of center, in a pot that is less wide and less deep, darker in value, somewhat redder in hue.
There is little taper to the trunk, and the present design seems intended in part to hide that fact. (Very pleasing design otherwise.) But why look as if you’re hiding something if you have an alternative? I would think long and hard about turning the tree into a bunjin: confine branches and foliage mass to the upper third of the image, thin the foliage as much as the good health of the tree permits.
As my grandfather used to say, “Free advice and worth every penny you pay!”