Its not everyday that I get to report on a club member presenting at another club. Well, this time I actually got an opportunity to just that! Lindsay was the guest demonstrator at this weekend's Kofukai meeting in Orange County.
He presented to Kofukai on an relatively newer cedar species (Leland Cedar). But it will produce golden leaf color if set in full sun and has great cryptomeria like leaf structure. I must say it was unique and had me guessing until I discussed this species at length with Lindsay before the demonstration.
If you look closely to the trunk of the tree. You will noticed that Lindsay already pre-wrapped the tree in the jute robe to prepare for a heavy trunk bending. Lindsay and Joe G. showed us this technique this past Winter as a workshop with Liquid Amber trees. The part that I did not get pictures was that Lindsay used 2 large pipe wrench to bend the tree. (its to the left of the tree in the photo above) I was the other pair of hands holding down that tree, while Lindsay used the small one to put movement into a rather straight trunk.
After some basic trimming (take out crutch buds, inside bends/curves, branches that go up/down), he started to wiring branches from the bottom up and added some movement into the branches themselves to mimic the shape of the new trunk. As you can see from the photo below, Lindsay had a vision and a plan for how the tree would come out because he finished the tree in a record time of 45 minutes from start to finish.
I hoped our OC friends got a glimmer how deep of a knowledge base our club has. It was an awesome demo Lindsay! I hope they thought it was too!