Not a lurker, just a new poster (here).
Owen, we met at Meehan's last summer. You saw this tree there and gave me some good tips on keeping it happy.
Unfortunately, before I came to own the tree it had been kept against a house and not rotated, so is fairly 2-dimensional. This spring at the PBA show in DC, Rodney Clemons persuaded me to rethink the tree's design, and thought it would make a good candidate for a partially blown-over tree as he saw growing up on the Gulf coast. I swallowed hard and gave it a shot. I is in a smaller cement mixing tub from HD, and now that I have covered the sphagnum on the rootage with wire mesh, the birds dont continually steal it for their nests. I guess this will stay as is until next spring when I will have a look under the soil for roots on the trunk and branches. If it works, it will be a bit of an unusual raft.