THE SURVIVOR

Harry Harrington rapidly develops a field elm into a bonsai

-  Harry Harrington

Over the years I have taken many field elms from raw stumps, newly collected from the ground, to refined trees with a high density of branches in just 4-5 years, something that is just not possible with other deciduous species.

Introduced into the UK by the Romans, for many centuries it was traditional to plant elm outside the entrance to farms as a source of cheap and fast growing timber. Either as wooden poles, or on the older more mature growth, as drainage pipes. Mature elm wood has a tendency to become rotten and hollow on the inside, but remains very strong on the exterior, as we'll see here.

How it started

The story of this field elm began with me in November 2018, less than 4 years ago. Collected by apprentice Sean Stolp in 2017, Sean had chopped the trunk while the tree was still in the ground and it had responded with many new vigorous shoots.

An interesting tree with ground-hugging movement, the main objective was to try and create some taper between the heavy trunk and the relatively skinny branches that emerged from it. Growing out a new leader was a possibility, but one that would have involved a huge amount of new growth for a good number of years to create some believable taper. My solution, as we shall see, was to thicken a new leader, and reduce the girth of the upper trunk by carving it. The trunk is already naturally hollow. As described before, this is not unusual for an old elm. The internal wood rots relatively easily, while the exterior wood remains strong.

When to carve?