There are several advantages to forming trees standing in the nature over time. Firstly, with this type of approach, the trees is living by itself. It does not need any attention, watering, pesticides, frosthiding or anything tending to regular bonsai trees does. By fertilizing with high nitrogen fertz (hen manure) one can add that little extra to boost nature itself. The trees are not bound to any pots, so the growth in all dimensions is much larger. That makes pruning a fun job because the number of leaves, buds and branches grow in the same rate as the different design possibilities. This extended growth rate makes an artist able to achieve a design much faster.
A second, but important thing about this approach is the location of the trees. Of course, having 200 trees in your garden would mean much less transport than having them up in the mountains, I am not saying that nature-tree-forming is the best, my point is it can be very rewarding, as an excersise (yes, you get fit as well) and addition to your other trees. But, not everyone has a garden. My collection consists of 54 pots with trees in them outside on my Terrace. For everyone I get in, i need to ditch two others. I am out of space. Some of the trees standing in the wild are so big that I would be required to throw away 10-15 of the other pots if I were to collect them now. So, in the meantime I freeshape.
Last outside-pot-count:
What is the point in freeshaping a tree, for lets say 5-6 years and then when trying to lift it from the ground, only to FAIL. Wouldnt that be such a waste of effort?
No! Of course the mortification in itself would be a waste of energy. But I think that the freeshaper, having tended to the tree for several years before yamadori will have a bigger success rate for survival compared to a collecter whom does not have this same knowledge. And i would strongly suppose that the experience itself, lifting a freeshaped tree contra a raw tree, would lead the lifter into a much higher state of awareness regarding his own effort in tending to it on beforehand.In other words, the stakes would be higher (which is better for the tree) and the result would be better (higher survival-rate which is good for the artist)
Like people doing GEOCACHING I allways get this sense that I need to Ninja out the trees from the ground. Of course you must allways get permission to dig out trees, but nevertheless noone should see me collecting anything! The same goes with shaping-before-collecting. This caution/awareness when out there free-shaping adds to the experience as a total.
I have kept this Larch in the ground since i found it three years ago, feeding it, wiring a bit and pruning down ugly branches year by year.
Before this years pruning:
After this years pruning:
The next step is to dig a 300 mm * 75 mm ditch in a circle with a radius of 4 * (the size of the nebari) and fill the ditch with substrate / gravel etc to enable the refinement of small feeder roots. The ditch will be dug in several steps with some time in between to slowly release the tree from the ground.
