18 Wednesday Mar 2020
Posted in Bonsai
Have you ever taken a bonsai to a club meeting or a workshop just to get everyone’s unsolicited advice about how you should style it? We have an often repeated joke in our local club that if you ask ten different people you’ll get twelve different answers. That’s especially true when you have an unkempt tree that is in desperate need of styling. And apparently also true if you don’t even ask.
Continue reading16 Monday Mar 2020
Posted in Bonsai
I am super excited about the development of a beech I collected and shared with you two years ago. You can read about that, and see photos from the time of collection here. For a quicker reminder, here’s a photo from autumn 2018, just a half a year after being collected.
12 Thursday Mar 2020
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For years when people asked me about bonsai, I was hesitant to use that word — the ‘B’ word — Bonsai. It meant something more than most of my trees represented, so I would say, “Yes, but I like to call them Potensai…They have the potential to one day become bonsai.” My trees AND I have gotten much better, but there are still occasions, and there are still plants that make me feel this way. One such is a wisteria planting I have kept around for a staggering 16 years.
Continue reading11 Wednesday Mar 2020
This is a weakness of mine — something I need to work to improve — positioning the tree perfectly in the pot. I don’t mean positioning the tree perfectly according to some rule or mathematical ratio. I just mean actually tying the tree into the pot the way I had intended to! This autumn olive, Elaeagnus umbellata, will demonstrate.
03 Tuesday Mar 2020
Posted in Bonsai
28 Friday Feb 2020
A short cautionary tale with a black pine early in its development as bonsai.
23 Sunday Feb 2020
This is a very young forest of Amur maples I started from seed. It was roughly pruned to shape after leaf drop in the fall, and needs a little wire going into this growing season. As you can see, the tree is ready to go, even though winter is still with us here in Virginia.
22 Saturday Feb 2020
Let us begin with this Vicary privet — Ligustrum vicaryi. It was collected in 2015 from my own yard, recovered in a large wooden box, and has had some initial styling decisions made including reducing from seven to three trunks, and some structural wiring.
08 Sunday Dec 2019
Posted in Bonsai
When the average person thinks about caring for a bonsai tree, they probably don’t think about animals. But in fact, many of us need to think about how a variety of animals might impact our little trees.
One that no doubt all bonsai enthusiasts deal with at one time or another is the impact of insects that can weaken or kill a tree. Some of us may consider beneficial insects as well. We might also experience the impact our own pets have, be they cats or dogs… or something else (dog people and cat people can duke it out in the comments below). Continue reading
29 Friday Nov 2019
What do you do when you get a tree that is in desperate need of repotting, but it’s not repotting season? I believe there are a number of good answers to this question, and the various approaches these answers represent may each be suited to a different situation. Continue reading
Bonsai Iterate 