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I drilled holes in the base, these are for the roots to grow through
and these will help the tree and driftwood merge together.
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The roots
of the larch were washed bare with a hose jet and I removed the
bark where the driftwood will make contact with the tree. When
these scars callous over during the next few years, they will
also absorb the driftwood creating a more natural bond.
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The trunk and
the tree were joined together with cable ties and some of the roots
threaded through the holes in the driftwood.
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The join between
the tree and wood has been sealed using grafting wax.
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The tree was
planted in a more upright position as Harry suggested in his virtual
(see below) , but I will make the final decision on the angle
at a later date.
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Finally so
that the cable ties could be removed, I screwed the tree and drift
wood together with brass screws. I drilled holes in the trunk
first to make sure that there was no chance of it splitting.
I screwed the screw heads below bark level so that the bark should
heal over them nicely.
Here's a picture of the tree with the ties removed and screws
in place.
Note
that Iron and Steel are very poisonous to Junipers and some
other coniferous species. Steel produces a chemical reaction
with the sap causing a disease called 'blackrot' that quickly
spreads through the tree causing it's death.
Use
solid brass or copper screws for tanuki projects; do not
use copper or brass plated steel screws
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This virtual
by Harry Harrington shows one possibility of the tree in future
years when the branches have been styled and developed.
Before any
styling I'm going to let the tree just grow out to speed up the
healing process and thicken the trunk up a bit.
The left side will need some work to blend it in with the tree
and I may well end up doing a little bit of carving on the drift
wood, but i will leave that for a while to see how things pan
out.
This growing season I will gently tap the trunk below the driftwood
on the left side, (where the drift wood is slightly prominent
to ground level), this will cause the trunk to swell in that area.
I use a small toffee hammer for this and it has worked quite well
on other trees that I have had.
Once i've seen the results of this, I'll decide on the final carving.
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Update August
2005. 6 months later and the tree has recovered from the work
and is developing well.
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