by Zach Smith | Apr 23, 2020 | Care, Crape myrtle, Flowering, Potting, Pruning, Styling
I was walking through the benches this evening and this Crape myrtle caught my eye. I started it from a cutting several years ago, and haven’t done more than maybe rough-prune it once. Today it called out “make something out of me” as I passed by. So I took it to the work bench, figuring it would make a fun 10-minute project.
(I apologize for the low-light photo. Late in the evening, sun going down, you know.)
When you have a piece of material like this, you have to always think about proportions. This Crape is a small shrub in a nursery pot. Making a bonsai-to-be out of it requires adjusting its proportions. This is one of the challenges I see beginners face all the time.
A few minutes of pruning changes everything! With the height of this specimen dramatically reduced, we now have a workable trunk thickness to height and spread ratio. It actually looks like a much larger specimen. So when it gets to its bonsai pot, it’ll possess the necessary “treeness.”
This is what I had in mind when I first noticed this Crape on the bench this evening. It’s not a huge specimen, but it looks like a full-grown Crape myrtle. A little more shearing is needed, but that’s easy-peasy.
What style of bonsai is this? It’s the well-known “I’m not sure but I like it anyway” style. But seriously, my plan is to guide it toward the so-called “pierneef” style, the iconic African savannah tree form. By shearing each of the trunks properly, I should be able to get to this result in a year.
Now about the pot. It’s a Lary Howard piece I ordered last year, but unfortunately it was broken in transit by the ever-enthusiastic shipping service. I really loved the pot, so I kept the pieces just so I could learn Kintsugi. This is my first effort. If you look closely, you can see the gold leaf I used along the mended cracks on either side of the front of the pot. Not a bad result at all.
by Zach Smith | Apr 22, 2020 | Care, Maples, Pruning, Styling, Wiring
So I’m probably not the first person to use the term “Bon-science,” but on the off-chance I am then I’ll cheerfully stake my claim.
Swamp maple, or Red maple, or Acer rubrum, or A. rubrum “Drummondii” is a very fine species that grows from South Florida north to Canada, and west to East Texas down here and Minnesota up there. Many folks will tell you they can’t be grown as bonsai because of large leaves that don’t reduce. This is not correct. It is also said that even if you get the leaves to reduce the petioles stay long. This is also not correct. As you get the leaves to reduce, the petioles get shorter so the effect is quite nice.
Anyway, my multi-year experiment consists of collecting trees with a good soil ball and the roots that go with it, and retaining that native soil in order to prevent (however it happens) the top-down rot that has plagued me in years gone by. I’ve had some success with this, as I’ve reported in previous blogs. So I upped my number of candidates this year, just in case I’ve cracked the code. Here’s one of them, at the just got home “stick in a pot” stage.
Here we are two months later, in the kind-of-sad “I only have a right arm and it’s been wired and stuck out to the side” stage. Hey, every bonsai starts somewhere. Why’d I do this, you may ask? Just to keep that branch cool while other growth caught up. The last thing I needed was for that one to gain strength and get so thick I could no longer bend it. Pre-emptive bending, I suppose.
Here’s what a month will do for you, if it’s late-March to late-April and you have roots that need to express themselves. Lonely right branch has lots of friends now.
Wire applied, and I’ve got my first two branches on their way.
Then in one fell swoop I cut away most of the top of this tree. Why? Because I had the opportunity to shorten the tree a bit and make use of an existing branch that had already grown upward on its own. It happened to make a good continuation of the trunk line. Swamp maple exhibits apical dominance, as most trees do, so you typically get a bushy top that you have to fight while making the tree structure. Here I’ve taken out 90% of it in one chop. The tree will try to replace what I cut off. I’ll continue pruning and pinching most of it off while the lower branches gain strength. Sometime next year I’ll have a better balance than I do now, though the tree is never going to completely give up on the idea of getting taller. It’s just part of bonsai.
So my goal with this tree is to make a presentable bonsai out of it in 2020. From harvesting to stick-in-pot to designed tree to potted-up-bonsai. I’ll get some degree of ramification but not much in the way of leaf size reduction. But that’s okay. If I get two years ahead of the curve with this specimen, then my experiment will have been a success. The tree and I can then settle into the refinement phase of its life in a pot.
by Zach Smith | Apr 19, 2020 | Care, Chinese Elm, Elms, Pruning, Styling, Water Elm, Wiring
Every tree has its own story, and this Cedar elm is no different. We collected it back in 2018. The bark and trunk character were the thing. As with trees of similar size, it got chopped to about 12″ and put in this pot. Unlike all but one of its fellow draft picks, it refused to bud anywhere but the trunk chop. Many elm species will bud at a trunk chop, and Cedar elm is no different. But it’s really unusual for them to fail to bud along the trunk. My solution, once the tree had grown out long enough for me to be sure if wasn’t going to cooperate, was to chop half the trunk off. I figured that even if it didn’t produce any buds low down, any new growth would allow me to build a tree with a first branch in a good spot. In keeping with its determination, the tree only produced two buds, and both of them were at the new chop point. Hurray (sarc). But okay, we work with what we have. Here’s the tree as it is now. Nice growth.
Here’s a closeup of my new leader. The transition point is thickening very well, and the leader has the added benefit of good tapering. All I need to do is continue to let it grow out.
The other thing that needs doing right now is to go ahead and do an angle cut where my new leader emerges. This is about what you should shoot for when you do these angle cuts. It’s best to go ahead and carve them smooth, especially the edges where callus is going to roll over. If you work with Cedar elm, you’ll learn quickly that they roll callus as well as any species out there, including Trident maple and Bald cypress.
I think this will make the best front, when all is said and done. What do you think?
First order of business: get rid of that low back branch. I thought I might need it, but now it’s clear I won’t. The original branch set was back-left-back-right. Nothing wrong with this. But there’s also nothing wrong with left-back-right. And considering the size and eventual height of this specimen, I don’t think that first back branch is going to look right. The other thing I’ve done here is to remove the sub-branches close to the trunk. This is a key to proper design. Now, there are cases where you may want to leave some branching near the base of the primary branch in order to create or improve taper of the branch; but that’s not necessary here, so I’ve simplified my life by going ahead and taking it off.
The last thing that needs doing today is to wire and reposition the left branch at the bottom and the corresponding right branch farther up (the back branch in between did not require repositioning). I need a lot more growth from this tree before it will begin to look like something worthwhile. I anticipate getting the new leader to a point this season where it’s about twice its current thickness. And that will put me in a good position for next year’s work.
This Water-elm is a 2018 recruit. I loved the trunk character when I first spotted it, and it’s just been a building chore ever since it first started throwing recovery shoots. The process is pretty simple once you’ve done it a few times. The chore of the day is to do the first trim for 2020. Also, notice how I have a couple of shoots emerging from that empty spot on the left side of the trunk between the lowest back branch and the left-hand branch farther up the trunk. I needed something in this spot, and the tree decided to cooperate. Love it when that happens.
Here I’ve wired and positioned that new left-hand branch. I’ll let it grow untrimmed for the next several weeks.
The remaining chore for today is to rough-prune (hedge) the crown and any lower branch that is thick enough. The branches that need more thickening are left alone for now. I was pleased with this result for today … until I wasn’t. I’ve commented before about the value you can get out of photographing your trees. As long as you understand and allow for any visual disagreement between the eye lens and the camera lens, photos can reveal flaws in your trees that you might not otherwise notice or take seriously enough. Now, you can usually work around or hide your trees’ flaws; in fact, much of the art of bonsai is doing just this. Rarely do we have perfect trees to work on, but rather imperfect trees that we can work to perfect or at least make better. In the case of this tree, I finally had to throw in the towel on its inescapable flaw. Nothing I’ve done so far has allowed me to get around it.
Yes, it was that long untapering stretch of trunk. My rule of thumb when I work on trees is that, whether trunk or branch, if you have an untapering section it can run for either two or three basal diameters before a reduction has to occur. In the case of this tree, I had a section that ran about six diameters without any taper. And there wasn’t anything I could do about it except to cut most of it off. The tree looks a bit odd now, but rest assured that the branch emerging from the chop point is going to backbud some more. And because I’m going to let it grow out untrimmed for several weeks, I should have a much better crown in the making by late summer. Stay tuned. (It’s worth noting that in an earlier post on this tree a reader pointed out the flaw in the trunk to me. I managed to ignore the obvious until today. You’ll probably have the same experience many times on your bonsai journey.) Leave me a comment below. I’d love to know what you think.
by Zach Smith | Apr 11, 2020 | Care, Dogwood, Potting, Pruning, Styling, Wiring
This Roughleaf dogwood has made the most of its spring growth. Today’s the day to take the next step in making this tree into a bonsai.
Starting at the bottom, I removed the superfluous shoots in the lower right-hand area in preparation for wiring and positioning branches there.
I started by wiring a young shoot I’d noted in a previous blog, that is emerging from just the right spot at the low trunk chop to provide a foliage mass where I need it.
On the left, I needed more movement in a branch that was already fairly stiff. I wired it with some 3 mm aluminum wire, which allowed me to reposition it where I wanted. You can see that now I’ve gotten all of the low branches in good spots, with some nice movement in each.
I’m a big proponent of “hedging” bonsai in development; it’s a technique I’ve been practicing for over 30 years now, and which has gained popularity at the forum Bonsai Nut based on Walter Pall’s work. Hedging is more or less what it sounds like – you take your shears and shape foliage masses on your tree by rough-pruning to a silhouette. The tree responds by back-budding and increasing its twigging. The added benefit is it allows you to come back and do selective pruning as you build out foliage masses from top to bottom. This is the refinement stage we work toward as we get closer to the best expression of each of our trees.
The final step for today. I’ve had this unglazed Chuck Iker round for a few years now, waiting for the right tree to come along. I’m thinking this is the one. What do you think?
by Zach Smith | Apr 10, 2020 | Care, Elms, Maples, Pruning, Styling, Wiring
So here’s an update on one of the Boxelders I’m playing with. It’s got a very nice flush of spring growth. Some styling decisions and work need doing at this point in time. No surprise there. But that got me to thinking. Every tree we work on has to have its own design plan, whether we consciously think about it or not. Here’s a list of tasks that need doing now:
- Trim back overlong branches
- Trim or remove upward and/or downward pointing branches, or use them for directional changes
- Wire and position branches and/or sub-branches as needed
- Shorten new leader in order to build taper at the trunk chop transition point
Step one is to shorten overlong branches as needed. Here I’ve started that process, from the bottom of the tree upward.
Continuing upward, same thing.
Here I’ve wired and positioned branches, followed by shortening the leader. I took the leader back to two nodes. I’ll almost certainly get buds at both nodes, at which point I’ll take another internode off and use the one closest to the transition point for my new leader. This will help build taper and thicken the transition point.
Here’s a Winged elm, Ulmus alata, that I lifted from a field growing area back in January. While it’s not too well established yet, from a rooting perspective, it does have some shoots that need to be wired and positioned before they get too stiff the bend easily. So here’s the design plan for this specimen:
- Remove unneeded shoots
- Wire and position shoots that will be used in the design
- Set the tree aside and let it grow until the wire needs removal; then,
- Rewire and trim, as needed, developing branches
- Remove trunk chop stub
- Wire up new leader
- Carve lower trunk chop used for directional change
This is all I can do today. Now it’s back to the bench for this specimen, and waiting for signs of wire cutting into branches. I expect that will happen as early as late next month.
