Squatty Limber Pine Styling-
Nearly 10 years ago I found this Limber Pine sitting at the intersection of three cracks in solid granite. The chunks of silvered wood you see as ‘wings’ on either side of the lower trunk, with air under them, are the remains of the original root system that ran down two cracks.
The space underneath them has always arrested me. Not just visually, as it’s unusual, but that it meant there was originally granite filling the void. The granite had eroded down to the level of the present soil line, fully 2.5″ / 6.35 cm. Since then I’ve often wondered what the 100-year decomposition rate of granite is, in inches. (If anyone knows the answer to this, the tree was found at 6,000 ft. in arid Wyoming, if that helps any.)
It’s always been a favorite small tree in the garden, being a natural tree with surprising taper. And it has a quirky oliphanty look about it, like an animal that doesn’t quite exist but might in a parallel universe. It’s about 13″ tall.
Limber Pine, Pinus flexilis, before work
This is our ‘non-completed’ design…it flows left, but will take a while for growth to make a balanced design a reality. In the last five years I think we’ve added only 3″ of length to that left low branch. Needs a bit more structure elsewhere too, especially the right side. They do develop slowly.
Michael Hagedorn 
6 Comments
That’s a little beauty Michael
Yes, I admit, I looked up oliphant. A wonderful similistic vision–love this squatty-one.
I have wanted a limber Pine for ages, hard to find in Canada.
Not at all! Reach out to Anthon on Vancouver Island. Actually, Michael here, has a number of trees Anthon has collected on the island. Top quality yamadori.
Lovely tree. What makes you say the “tusks” are roots and not branches?
One of those times where a pic of the material insitu would be good for yamadori hunters to include. Was the idea that maybe this had grown on a nurse log which decayed and disappeared over the years?
That said, for sure I would defer in the end to local knowledge.