More Collected BC Fun – Hard Chops And Small Stars
I often get questions about chopping the roots of collected trees, and it seems the question most often asked is, “If you chop the roots back that far, will the tree survive?” The short answer, of course, is always, “Yes, it will.” This is from a lot of experience,...
The 2018 Bald Cypress Harvest, Part 1
Once the BC we collect this year start budding, I'll begin sending out advance photos of candidates per your requests. For anyone not currently on our list who would like to be, just send me an email with the size you're looking for and/or budget and I'll add you. ...
Fascinating Facts About 10 Bonsai Species
There's not much growing at this time of year, so I got to pondering some fascinating facts about 10 of the species I grow as bonsai. Here they are, in no particular order. This species produces more trunk buds when collected as bare stumps than just about any other...
Fall Color And Reflection
As the year draws to a close, it's nice to spend some time reflecting on this year's growing season and how it impacted our bonsai. Was it a good year? What new things did you learn? What surprises (good or bad) popped up? It's for sure that you never stop...
The Learning Never Stops – Here Are A Few Survivors
I do all sorts of things with trees, some good and some bad but all with the best of intentions. The ultimate goal is a great bonsai that really makes you think it's a real tree. My preference is to speed up the process as much as possible. Here are a few examples...
Let’s See If I Can Kill This Bald Cypress
In bonsai we learn the real lessons by doing. With that said, there's no way to learn everything about every species of tree or shrub in every specimen that comes into your care. The closest you can come is if you have many specimens that are all the same size from...
Fun’s On The Way Next Year With These “Two-fers”
I have a couple of specimens I acquired this year, one that I collected and the other that I bought from a fellow grower. The first is a Swamp maple, Acer rubrum "Drumondii." Now, I have not yet in my bonsai career been able to crack the code when it comes to...
How I Made Something Impressive Out Of This Bald Cypress
It's not always easy to see the bonsai in the material. As you gain experience, however, it does get a lot easier. You get better at seeing alternatives. I posted this Bald cypress, Taxodium distichum, for sale the other day. It's a solid pre-bonsai...
One Of The Big Trees I’m Keeping, An Awesome Bald Cypress
In keeping with the weekend's theme, I wanted to update you on one of the big trees I'm keeping, an awesome Bald cypress (Taxodium distichum). The last time I blogged on this one was in July. July is Bald cypress defoliation season. If your tree is in good...
Just This One Last Big Tree … I Think
A couple of weeks ago I measured the height of stupidity at 25 feet, because I collected this massive Sycamore that had to be chopped down from that height. At the time I observed that getting older means working with fewer really massive trees. They really are...