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Today I'm back my Chinese elm that I bought online back in 2020
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Here it is last November where you can see it's shutting down for the winter. I have pruned it back hard last thing to rebuild the structure and the branches here are the ones I wanted to keep so it's grown really well
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By February it lost all its leaves and you can actually see the structure now
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I trimmed it here but it was only a light prune. I just removed any of the shoots that I didn't want
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Basically any ones that shot out in random places I didn't need. But really, 99% of what is here is what I want to keep
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My plan was to air layer the top of the tree off in spring, as I hate the way the trunk splits into two
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But I didn't actually get round of doing this. This is the only reason I left the branches long
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as I wanted the tree to have plenty of leaves when it was air layering, so it would root faster
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Leaving them long isn't really a problem though. It will only help thicken the base of the branches up
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which to be honest, it could do if anyway, so I'm not worried at all. In March, it doesn't look like anything is happening
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but the buds are starting this well. I also had no plans to repot it this year
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as the plan was just to air-lare it. But you can see the buds a bit better here
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Some of them look like they might open, while others are only starting this well
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In April, it's pretty much in leaf and it's probably just after this or at least in the early May that I should have really aired aired it
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But I can't remember what happened. I just kept putting it off and putting it off and then for some reason I gave up on the idea
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But like I already said, the branches on here are ones I'm wanting to keep. So just leaving them on touch
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is really going to help thicken them up Some of them are pretty skinny
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So this is actually probably a good thing And then I'll have to work out what I do next spring
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I guess just leave them So the air layer is faster And then prune up bags just before I remove the air layer
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But that's something I can think about over winter In August it's pretty much coming to the end
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of the growing season. It wasn't the best weather here this summer, but it's done all right
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It's pretty long and leggy and certainly lost its shape from when I bought it, but that's all part
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of the plan. In the long run this will be much better tree than the one that arrived
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So not a lot going on this video, but that is what happens of trees, especially if you're
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totally changing it from what you bought. It still has a good few years until I've corrected
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everything that I didn't like. But at least this year the new branches and structure was allowed to think
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which is never a bad thing. And here it is now where it's settling down for winter
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So although there's not much progress this year I'm happy enough for this tree
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Thanks for watching, see you next time
