Creating taper in a Taxus

This Yew has been carved over the last couple of years.Collected back in 2008/9, the Taxus was originally 20 feet (5/6 metres) tall. The taper wasn't great so I wanted to improve it. Rather than carve the taper into the deadwood, I decided to thin the outer wood and bend it inwards with a live vein.

                                                  This is the section of the front I pulled in

I released the section by using a Gigsaw to cut down the trunk. The inside was thinned to allow the live vein and deadwood to be moved inwards.

Once it was thin enough to move by hand slightly, I put a hooked screw on the inside of the deadwood

A hole was drilled in the deadwood next to the live vein and a Copper guy wire was used to pull the wood in to create the necessary taper. The foliage was left alone at this stage.

The area cut with the Jigsaw was then carved. Detailed carving will be carried out soon

You can just about make out the taper here. Notice the vertical branch on the tapered section?

Here is the vertical branch today. Time to add it to the deadwood

I used a branch splitter to start the process and then a Dremmel to smooth and get deeply behind and below the branch.

The back was sealed with wound paste, a piece of plastic hose was used to protect the bark and then a Copper wire was used to draw the branch to the deadwood.

 Objective complete. The branch will be left to grow freely this Summer and I hope to style this tree in the               Autumn. More refinement carving will take place in the next couple of weeks

The wire was replaced yesteday as it looked a little tight. I decided to use a blot across the branch and will move it ov a regular basis to stop scarring.

The whole process of this tree can be seen if you click the following link....

http://wildwoodbonsai.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/taxus-baccata-big-boy.html