When growing bonsai trunks, often people speak about using sacrificy branches. However, when I look at fora online, it is often unclear how large such branches may actually become. In this picture, you can see that the sacrifice branch fully dominates the rest of the plant. Actually, in this caase, it is a plant taken from a hedgerow a year before, had the roots cut off, and was planted deep in order to rebuild the roots. This was succesfull and after a year I dug up this tree to start it’s life as a bonsai.
What is very clear in this picture is the big difference in trunk girth above the big sidebranch (Which I am holding) and below. As a good trunk has a smooth taper, this branch needs te be removed to avoid a big step in girth.
