Time to clean tools

Tags

Bonsai, maintenance, tool, tools, winter

I don’t have enough bonsai work in the winter to keep me happy. This week, the best I’ve got is cleaning tools. 

I realized just how many different items I use to do this as I worked to round everything up: sharpening stone and oil, files, brushes, sandpaper and steal wool for cleaning and removing any accumulated rust, newspapers, paper towels, old rags, and of course WD-40. 

I worked on at least a dozen tools I use very regularly. Even though I try to take care of my tools year round with quick cleaning after use, they can get to looking pretty rough like this pair of scissors. 

Each item was brushed off and had any rust or stubborn sappy residue removed. Blades were sharpened, and each tool was wiped down with WD-40 to protect from rust forming in the coming season. I also check the feel of each tool to see if they feel too loose. This can quickly be repaired with a couple quick whacks of the hammer to tighten the hinge. 

All should be well for the start of the spring season. 

Doing It Wrong #4

Tags

Bonsai, tree health

They say, “If you’re not killing trees, you’re not learning.” Well, I guess I’ve done a lot of learning, and one of the main reasons is #4 on the doing-it-wrong list: working on weak trees. 

I have styled trees right after collecting, repotted trees that haven’t been growing well, and defoliate trees with weak growth. (Don’t do any of these things!) I was often the cause of the weakness too. I have underwatered, under fertilized and over stressed many trees over the years. I just didn’t know better.

One thing that always caused problems for me was advice from experts about things like watering and fertilizer. And the reason for the problem is simple. The advice I was reading was on caring for mature, refined bonsai, but all of my trees were in development… EARLY development!

Step One before performing work on a tree should always be to determine if the tree is strong and healthy! If the answer is no, the work can wait. Get the tree healthy first!

If you haven’t caught the first few doing-it-wrong posts, feel free to check them out here:

Doing It Wrong #1, Doing It Wrong #2, Doing It Wrong #3

Doing It Wrong #3

Tags

Bonsai, mistakes, novice, rookiemistake, seedlings

Number 3 on the list of things I’ve been doing wrong for twenty years: Working with tiny plants. 

Bonsai is a hobby that can eat up a lot of money, but… well, I haven’t had much of that. One of the errors I made because of this is collecting little seedlings with hopes of one day training them into bonsai. This is a rediculously slow way to end up with a good bonsai!

This collection of azaleas is a good example. They are not remotely tree-like and are years from being anything worth the time it takes to water them. This is the kind of thing I am now getting off my bench and back in the ground where they belong. If they show promise 5 or 10 years down the road, then I’ll reconsider. 

There are ways to get bigger, better stock to develop your collection at little to no cost. Larger plants can be purchased at garden centers (watch for sales!) or they can be collected, including from your neighborhood. I continue to be surprised at how often neighbors have old shrubs removed and discarded as they redesign their gardens.
You always need to get permission before digging a plant, but to get permission, you have to ask for it. So look around, and if you see something that would make a good bonsai, ask about it. You might get turned down a lot, but you may be surprised how happy someone can be to have you remove a plant they didn’t even want in the first place. 

Winter Planning

Tags

autumn olive, Bonsai, planting angle

Not a lot to do with my trees this time of year, so I spent some time just looking and thinking this morning. The subject? This Autumn Olive, Elaeagnus umbellata, collected early this past spring, and shown here in summer with strong growth. 

Since it recovered so quickly, I plan to get it out of this plastic nursery pot (and the poor-draining soil that fills it) and into a training box with a better growing medium this spring… but at what angle? 

The possibilities below use nearly the same front. I don’t think the opposite side has as much potential as a front, but regardless, I need to get the tree standing in one way or another. Right now, as you can see from the angle of the pot, the whole thing just leans backwards, no doubt because it just fit in the pot that way. 

I won’t worry too much about this as this is very early in the tree’s design. I will get it in a box and begin developing branches over the next few years. It has a long way to go, but I think that trunk has potential!

Times Change

Tags

Bonsai, Bonsai Empire, Michael Hagedorn

I just watched this video for the second or third time. It’s a good reminder that a number of the things I learned from bonsai books twenty years ago are no longer considered best practice in the art form.

Doing It Wrong #2

Tags

advice, beginner, Bonsai, bozek, novice, repot

Number two on the list of things I was doing wrong for two decades: Repotting too often. 

I have heard from many who are scared to repot their bonsai – afraid they will kill the tree. Not me! Perhaps I read one too many things that suggested you should repot annually. And I did for many of my trees. I enjoyed it. Got good at it too. Didn’t kill the trees either, but boy was I slowing them down! My trees were in development. I should have let them grow. Instead, I was root pruning and repotting like I didn’t want them to grow beyond what they were already. 

Any advice about how often to repot (or anything else for that matter) should taken with a grain of salt. The advice is given from the context and experience of the giver, not the receiver. If a guy like me (with a bunch of undeveloped trees) hears from a guy with many refined trees, the advice just doesn’t apply. 

“We repot too often,” local guru Rich Bozek says. Here’s how he breaks it down:

There are three reasons to repot.

1. Soil decomposition
2. Loss of percolation
3. Aesthetic reasons

And NEVER repot a sick tree!

One way to understand his advice is this: don’t repot a tree because a certain number of years has passed. Repot because it is needed!

Doing It Wrong #1

Tags

advice, beginner, Bonsai, mistakes, novice

How does a guy spend twenty years with bonsai and still feel like a beginner? By doing it wrong! I have been doing things wrong for so long, I’m an expert! LEARN FROM ME!

I have not laid out any sort of plan for sharing my misdoings (ironically, as you will see in a moment) but I am going to move forward confident that putting a “#1” in the title will be the right path. There could, no doubt, be many of these. So, what is number 1? 
I never refined a tree!

The experts do address this issue, in a way. I would distill the related ideas into two statements:

1. Every tree is in training.
2. A tree can’t always be show ready. 

The problem is, I took these ideas to the extreme and for two decades never even tried to get a tree to a refined state. What’s worse, I also wasn’t taking advantage of this time to properly develop thick trunks and nice branch structure. (If only!) I kept every tree either untrained (because I didn’t know what to do with it yet) or I pruned just to maintain a shape or size without any proper techniques for improving the design or ramification. Neither approach will make a great tree no matter how long you try!

Here’s my advice to avoid making the same mistake: Make a plan for each tree – a five or ten year plan if you must. What steps must you take to develop a refined, show-ready tree. Sure, you may have to adjust as you go along, but without a plan, you are just keeping a tree  alive. A good start, sure, but you can do better. 

Not Bonsai

There is no bonsai in this photo, but something for bonsai people will appreciate nonetheless. 

Grow out of problems.

Tags

Bonsai, crataegus, hagedorn

I have shared before that, while I still feel like a beginner, I have been a bonsai enthusiast for a long time. It surprises me, then, when a new idea pops out at me. This may just mean I don’t pay attention well, or that I am a slow learner, but I digress. 

A recent post on Crataegus.com, one of the fantastic blogs I follow, included this little gem:

“One of my core beliefs with a tree that has faults like this is to grow it into the next size larger bonsai. Literally, grow it out of its problems.”

I have considered this approach with my own trees, but to hear it from Michael Hagedorn officially puts this strategy in my tool box. 

Thanks for the great post, Michael. 

Winter Winds

Tags

Bonsai, cold frame, deciduous, protection, wind, winter

We are expecting some nasty winter winds to arrive with a cold front this evening, so I will get the trees sheltered. I am far more concerned about the wind than I am the temperatures. We will be below freezing at night, but the trees can handle that. It’s the cold, dry winds that could desiccate branches and damage buds that have formed for the spring. 

We have actually had an extended period of mild weather this fall which is evident in the amount of green you can still see on the deciduous trees that will go into the cold frame for protection. When the wind gets going, I will close her up.