For those of you who had an opportunity to view the trees offered for the November meeting's critique, the tree in picture 1 below, is fairly similar in size and dimension to the small yew that was labelled 'F' in that critique. Both of these trees have already had their foliage reduced by about 50% before any pictures were taken. (I did not take a picture of the tree in the critique before chopping it up).

Although Bob did not get the opportunity to critique this particular tree, I thought I would take a picture of the interim results of what action was performed on that tree.

Since the branches and placement were not of real interest in the design, all of the heavy branches were removed, leaving only the possibility for various jins. The trunk shows interesting movement in two different views, so 6 minor branches were left on. Three branches were left for each of the two views. Obviously, when I make my final selection in spring as to which view will be best, three of these will be removed.

Although the apex was cut back, it will be shortened once again in spring, by at least another 6 inches.

As the tree was bare-rooted in November and heavily cut back as well, I have left a bit more of the apex on in order to help the tree recover over winter. Although a yew does need a dormant period, it doesn't need a deep freeze for as long a period as our winters. So it will go into my cold room which does get sunlight and hopefully I'll get an early budding in spring. The leading branch does not have any buds in or near the position where I want the new crown to form. Removing the foliage entirely from the apex when the tree is now in this weakened state may cause the leading branch to die off, leaving the formation of new buds to occur lower down on the trunk line than I would wish. The branches have been left longer for the same reason. In fact, none of the foliage currently on the tree will be in the final design. Everything will come from new buds closer to the trunk on the branches and lower than the current apex.

So I'll wait for spring before further work is done.

P.S.

Don't blame the publisher if the pics don't look that great. I used a Polaroid 600 camera for the shots.