The fact that growing trees can be an art, we will find out by looking at the achievements of a pair of artists from Queensland, Australia. Peter Cook and Becky Northey have developed a technique for modeling trees unique in the world, which they called Pooktre.It consists in the gradual shaping of shoots, sometimes for a few, sometimes even several years, until the desired composition is obtained.And while tree formation is nothing new, no one has ever made pruning and grafting art on a scale like the Australians mentioned.
They are masters in this field, and their work is becoming more and more popular not only in Antipodes. All over the world, only a dozen or so people use the technique of professional tree shaping.
The first who de alt with it on a large scale and who gained publicity thanks to his works was Axel Erlandson, an American farmer operating at the beginning of the 20th century.His life's work is a collection of several dozen trees (25 of You can still admire them), which he called The Tree Circus.We can now see his work at the Gilroy Gardens Family Theme Park in California.
The most important thing in forming trees is understanding their life processes. Only such knowledge allows you to control their development and give them the desired shape. This is happening gradually, step by step, every day over the course of many seasons. As a result, the tree grows evenly and enjoys good he alth.Ultimately, it can be cut and transformed, through professional processing and impregnation techniques, into an everyday object, e.g. a table, chair, stool, mirror frame, coffee table.
The work on shaping the tree begins with the preparation of the design on the basis of which we make the frame.Young trees are led after it.The best seedlings are not more than 30 cm high.During the growing season, the shoots are looked after basically every day. Such regularity guarantees even, predictable and, above all, he althy development of trees. What's more, the use of a frame allows us to obtain relatively repeatable furniture, gradually improving our skills in the shaping technique.
Forming by vaccination
Tree formation is a multi-stage process in which several shaping techniques are applied simultaneously.The most obvious is the use of solid frames that guarantee a stable support for the shoots throughout the development of the tree.The second key treatment is vaccination. It differs slightly from the techniques we know, e.g. from fruit growing.
In both cases, however, the point is the same - the fast and permanent fusion of tissues, i.e. the cambium (creative pulp) of two plants, occurring between the phloem and the wood.Carefully incise the shoots, bring them together and tie them tightly together. The last very important procedure is trimming.By shortening the shoots, we control the strength and direction of growth of the entire tree.Sometimes it is only possible to obtain original forms by the creative use of cutting alone.
How to grow … a chair
1. Plant the tree in a place where it can grow peacefully for at least a few years.
2. Next to the ground, we fix a frame that reflects the shape of, for example, a future chair.Bend the growing shoots and prune them so that they give rise to our future construction.
3. We connect the twigs, if necessary, by grafting. Tfor a simple procedure involving cutting off a fragment of the bark and combining the shoots (just tie them together).The touched shoots grow together after a few months.
4. When the tree takes the chosen shape, it is grown until the shoots thicken.
5. We cut the chair and season it in the garage for another year.
Sit down and start shaping
Forming suitable for e.g. Cherry plum (ałycza) and American black cherry (these species are cultivated by Pooktre, both of them also grow in Poland). Ash, sycamore maple, alder and common beech are also very good for shaping and grafting.The obtained figures / furniture can be cultivated in the ground or cut down after achieving the desired shape and size.However, before a tree becomes an object of everyday use, it must be professionally processed. It is worth mentioning here about the mysterious plant creations growing in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship.
I am talking about the so-called Krzywymy Las near Szczecin, where over 300 deformed pines grow.These trees are bent into a very strong arch at an angle of approx. 90 ° from the horizontal, approx. 20 cm above the ground. Until now, it is not known who shaped them this way …
