Part II: Beech Design Puzzle

Well, then. This is where we made the cut on the beech tree…

…to the first strong leader that continues a flowy trunk line.

Tony in a festive mood.

The new leader continues the flow of the trunk. In a couple years it too will be removed. Then the decision will have to be made whether to repeat the process, cutting to a new leader, or to begin keeping the top restrained and create a canopy. I think this tree will only get better, given its faults, if we do the process as least once more. One of my core beliefs with a tree that has faults like this is to grow it into the next size larger bonsai. Literally, grow it out of its problems.

If we had cut to one of the smaller, weaker branches below the leader, we would have lost about a year of momentum in…