Page 9 - 3 Methods of Tree Shaping

In our opinion the Cons of Arborsuclpture far outweigh the Pros, here are the

Pros.

Pros of Arborsculpture

• Quick - You can bend trees into a design in an hour or less.
• Instant result - By bending and weaving the whips into a design similar to
basket weaving, an instant pleasant effect is achieved.

• Cheap to start - simply take many cuttings of a willow put them in water
and they will quickly take root, as will poplar.

• Books -There are two books by Richard Reames detailing his method. Instant tree shaping (Arborsculpture)

Cons of Arborsculpture

• Still experimental - Richard Reames creator of this method started
shaping trees in 1992 and states in his 2nd book (Arborsculpture) in 2005

that he doesn’t understand why his trees respond the way they do and that
he now regards all his tree shaping to be experimental and he has faith he
will learn from his trees.

• Slow uneven growth and die back - When Richard visited us he talked
about his tree projects having quite a high level of die back, a year or so
later Peter queried him about it in an e-mail and Richard replied about

having a 30% dieback. In his 2nd book he recommends having plenty of
trees in reserve to replace the trees that will die just after planting. It has

been noted by others that the following season more trees die from the
initial bending in the creation of the piece.
• Long time to find out it doesn’t work - In short the Arborsculpture bending

methods create irrevocable damage to the trees, resulting in dieback, slow
growth or stunted growth. Unfortunately the results can take up two years

or more to show, because of the nature of trees’ growth patterns. We have
seen a tree where a grub had completely ring barked the cambium layer.
This tree continued to grow the rest of the season and it wasn’t until part

way through the next that the tree died. Arborsculpture’s bending tech-
nique effectively ring barks the trees, though Richard Reames states in
his book that “95% of all my mistakes have had nothing to do with the fact

that my trees were bend or grafted.” We disagree, it is Arborsculpture’s
bending of mature trees that is causing most of the mistakes.
• Designs don’t conform to tree lore - Because of the troubles Arborsculpture

has with achieving even and balanced growth, no-one using this method
has reached the stage of being able to test and repeat to find out where

the design faults are.
9