Fascinating Facts About 10 Bonsai Species

by | Jan 2, 2018 | American Elm, Bald Cypress, Crape myrtle, Dogwood, Elms, Hornbeam, Vines

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.
Bald Cypress

Bald Cypress - Taxodium Distichum

This species produces more trunk buds when collected as bare stumps than just about any other species. This makes branch selection almost problematic (too many choices!).

Holly - Ilex Species

This species have male and female flowers on different plants. The bright red fall berries occur only on the female plants. The leaves and stems of common Yaupon, Ilex vomitoria, were brewed into a tea by Native American men for use in purification and unity rituals. These rituals included vomiting, hence the scientific name given by Europeans when they originally classified the species. Only the Yaupon tea does not actually cause vomiting. Oops.
Crape Myrtle

Crape Myrtle - Lagerstroemia Indica

With this species, new shoots are square when they first emerge. As they extend and thicken, they round off.

Flowering Dogwood - Cornus Florida

The beautiful white flowers are not flowers at all (as in flower petals), they’re white flower bracts. The actual flowers are yellow and inconspicuous, and reside in the center of the bracts.

Elms - Ulmus Species

Tricky to prune larger roots, as the bark will separate easily. Sawing works better, however, don’t saw straight through from one side or the bark will likely peel on the other side of the cut. (Even with experience you will likely make a mistake here and there when preparing collected elms.)
Crape Myrtle
American elm – champion in leaf-size reduction, from 5” long in the wild to under ½” in a bonsai pot. This is the first image to your left. Six weeks later (image to your immediate left), this American elm already has much smaller leaves. Easy stuff!
Crape Myrtle

Willow Leaf Ficus - Ficus Salicaria

This is perhaps the most popular fig species grown as bonsai, it is unknown in the wild (meaning you can’t go look at mature specimens in their natural habitat). The original plant was discovered in a Florida nursery by Joe Samuels, who eventually acquired and began propagating it. If you have one, it came from this single specimen.

American Hornbeam - Carpinus Caroliniana

This species grows continuously throughout the growing season, never pausing as most species do. There’s always fresh new growth. This trait is almost unique among species grown as bonsai.
Crape Myrtle

Figs - Ficus Species

Figs are technically among the flowering plants (angiosperms), so where are the flowers? Actually, the flowers are inside the fruit and never “bloom” as we understand the term. Typically a specialized wasp enters the tiny opening at the end of the fruit to pollinate it.

Wisteria - Wisteria Floribunda

This species is quite the bean! I know we don’t tend to think of the lovely Wisteria in such terms, but as a member of the legume family Wisteria is related to all of the beans and peas. Once the stunning flowers have done their thing each year, a pod slowly but surely develops until it’s quite obvious by fall.

Did You Enjoy?

This was a fun topic for me. I sure hope you enjoyed the read. Drop me a comment below; I really enjoy hearing from people who love bonsai as much as I love it!

Fall Color And Reflection

by | Dec 2, 2017 | Bald Cypress, Care, Chinese Elm, Elms, Oaks

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 learning in the wonderful art and hobby of bonsai. Bonsai South has had a great year, and thanks to all of you who helped make it that way. I’m really excited about 2018, which should be even better. Watch for new collected trees early next year. So we don’t get too much fall color here in the very Deep South, so it’s always super nice to see something among my bonsai. Here are a few trees that have over-performed (even if only a bit).
Cedar Elm

Cedar Elm - Ulmus Crassifolia

This Cedar elm, Ulmus crassifolia, is living here until it heads off to a client next spring (2018). Isn’t the color delightful?.

Chimese Elm

Chinese Elm - Ulmus Parvifolia

This Chinese elm, Ulmus parvifolia, has been in development a few years now. I’m working on building out the crown, and making good progress. I’m a couple of years away from getting it to look right. This tree has had a somewhat tough year in 2017, coping with a bout of black spot. It’s a fairly common problem with Chinese elm, but not too hard to manage. Most of the leaves are off the tree now, but I have some attractive yellow ones still left. They’ll be gone within a week.
Bald Cypress

Bald Cypress - Taxodium Distichum

This tree produces a really lovely “glowing” rust color in the fall. There’s not a lot of foliage on this one, but you can’t argue with how attractive it is. As with the Chinese elm above, this one will be bare within a week.
Willow Oak

Willow Oak

Finally, here’s Rip Van Winkle, my late-budding Willow oak (Quercus phellos). I left it alone this year to grow out, as it appeared to be sluggish. Hopefully it will have regained all of its strength by the 2018 growing season. I got some unexpected color from it, so thought I would share.

Did You Enjoy?

I hope you’ve had a great bonsai year, and that your trees are thriving. Remember we’re always here to help out however we can!

The Learning Never Stops – Here Are A Few Survivors

by | Nov 11, 2017 | Bald Cypress, Crape myrtle, Elms, Potting

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 of trees that (so far) have survived my good intentions.

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You probably remember this Cedar elm, Ulmus crassifolia, from a couple of weeks ago. I was trying to decide which pot worked best, and most of you picked this one. Last weekend I took the plunge and slip-potted it. It doesn’t seem to have minded at all.

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Here’s another victim of fall slip-potting, a nice Bald cypress (Taxodium distichum). As with the Cedar elm, it didn’t mind a bit. Not even the slightest protest.

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Here’s a Crape myrtle, Lagerstroemia indica (purple flowers), made from a cutting this year. What I like about it is the neat movement in the trunk – which was originally nice movement in a branch I pruned off of another bonsai and rooted. That got me to thinking literati.

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I had this neat small pot lying around, so after some quick pruning and wiring and a lot of root-pruning, voila! A very small literati Crape myrtle. I don’t know yet, but I suspect it’ll come through fine.

Let’s See If I Can Kill This Bald Cypress

by | Oct 21, 2017 | Bald Cypress, Care, Potting, Styling, Wiring

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 the same origin and you can practice real science on them. Otherwise, you piece together lessons along the way into a set of guidelines.

Back in September I got the itch to start making something out of this Bald cypress (Taxodium distichum). Now, this tree is not going to end up at the National Arboretum. At the same time, something very nice can be made out of it. It’s got some trunk character from its time in the swamp, and a little curve to the trunk along with just about ideal taper. There’s even a stabilizing root in the right spot (to go along with some radial roots that will develop well in a pot).

There’s more to this tree’s story. Way back in spring, it budded weakly and I had become convinced it wasn’t going to survive collecting. It stubbornly refused to die, while also stubbornly refusing to put on much growth. So I set it on the bench and left it alone to live or die. After several months it started to push some “survival growth.” What’s survival growth? That’s the second round of growth that is fueled by new roots. Deciduous trees will push a round of buds and shoots after you collect them. The roots come next. If your first set of shoots extends just a few inches and then stops, your tree is at risk and likely to die. If the growth continues on and gets stronger, you know there’s roots down under.

Anyway, this tree finally decided to live by pushing a second round of growth that extended with vigor. So I decided to wire a design into it with the idea of making it more than it looked like wanting to be. Then I ignored it a while longer, and wouldn’t you know, it pushed a few more shoots that said “I’m getting stronger.”

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Today I took the opportunity to do an experiment with Bald cypress. We can call this experiment “Fall root-pruning and potting of Bald cypress displaying limited vigor.” Even though the tree clearly recovered from its early torpor, it grew nothing like most of them do through summer. So there’s definitely a risk in disturbing its roots at this late point in the season. But you know, if it survives and prospers next year, I will have learned a very valuable lesson about the limits of Bald cypress.

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Here’s step one. This photo was taken after I cut off a pencil-thick root growing straight down, that incidentally had a nice bunch of fibrous roots at the end. I would have preferred not doing this, but nothing ventured nothing gained. My goal here was not to do a slip-potting, but rather something more drastic. It’s the only way to really push this envelope.

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And now the tree is installed in its training pot. I don’t know if you noticed, but if you compare the first and second photos of this tree you can see the new shoots that sprouted up near the top of the tree, along with the extension of the apex to the tune of several inches. Nice late-season strength.

Now I go back to ignoring this bonsai to be. There’s not much growing time left this year, but I do expect renewed growth in the root zone and possibly even a little above ground. Then we’ll see if winter can derail us.

Fun’s On The Way Next Year With These “Two-fers”

by | Oct 8, 2017 | Bald Cypress, Care, Collecting, Maples

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 collecting this species. The larger specimens (what I’m after) seem to do fine the first year or two following collection, but by year three they start rotting from the chop point. Nothing I’ve ever tried has kept this from happening. This year I tried yet another approach: leaving the specimen in as much of its native soil as possible, keeping as much of the trunk as possible, and doing absolutely no work whatsoever to it. Here’s this tree at the end of year one:

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I thought this was an interesting “two-fer,” two trees growing close to one another that seem to make a nice pair. The small one didn’t get chopped at all, while I did shorten to large one. Other than that, no wiring or otherwise messing with it. And it sits in native soil. Next year I’ll chop the smaller trunk back to about a third its size, putting it in nice scale with the larger one. I expect to do some wiring and training. Then in 2019 it’ll be time to transition from the native soil to bonsai soil. I should know by then if the rot is going to attack this specimen.

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In the meantime, here’s what I see in the future for this one.

Of course, the tree has to do its part and live. I’ll post more on it if that comes to pass.

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Here’s the second “two-fer” I’m looking forward to working on next year, a Bald cypress I acquired for another grower. These two trees are also well matched. The smaller one needs to be closer to the large one, plus the planting angle needs adjustment. But I can go straight to a bonsai pot with them next year and do all of the training there. So in spring, I begin work on the plan below.

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This is what I’m seeing for these two trees. I think it’s a pretty good plan.

Let me know what you think.

How I Made Something Impressive Out Of This Bald Cypress

by | Oct 7, 2017 | Bald Cypress, Care, Styling, Wiring

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.

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I posted this Bald cypress, Taxodium distichum, for sale the other day. It’s a solid pre-bonsai specimen: great trunk base with exposed roots, wonderful taper, and even some trunk movement. There’s a lot of roots in the pot, which means there’s a lot of growth waiting to happen next year (I chopped it when I acquired it from a fellow collector – it was quite a bit taller).

Despite all of these great qualities, it isn’t necessarily easy to see the “right” bonsai in the material. Do you make a flat-top or traditional style? Do you wait till next year for all the growth that’s going to happen down the trunk, then select branches? These are valid choices.

Here’s how I approached this basic question. I decided I really wanted to do the initial styling on this tree today. So what does that mean? Well, it automatically put a limit on the branches I had to work with. I also needed to figure out how best to present this tree to the viewer. This photo shows the tree from the front, more or less. The best choice, as it were. So where to go from here?

The first thing to take note of is that the exposed roots do not harmonize with the planting angle. The tree looks unstable, in other words. So let’s correct that problem.

 

So with a handy block of wood, now I’ve taken care of that imbalance problem quickly and easily.

And that was the easy part. Now I have to make a who design out of about a half-dozen branches, some of which aren’t even big enough to survive winter.

One thing about this tree that caught my eye as I studied it over the past few weeks is the long, strong branch on the left side of the tree way up the trunk. Surely something can be done with it. Not only that, given the nature of the exposed roots at the base of the tree, I think it can benefit from the creation of dramatic tension.

What’s dramatic tension?

When we think of bonsai, we have to think of struggle at some point. Not all trees are meant to give the appearance of struggle, but for those that do the trunk base and nebari, plus the curves of the trunk, plus the angles presented by branch placement must “shout” at us. So far with this tree, the exposed roots seem to be plunging into the soil as if to hang on for dear life against all odds. That’s dramatic tension. In order to continue this story, I’ve got to make the rest of the tree say the same thing. If I don’t, then there’s a disconnect that will register in the viewer’s mind without their even knowing it.

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Here’s my solution.

You may want to take a few minutes to study the before and after photos. I’ve stripped away all but two branches in the body of the tree. I don’t need a lot of branches.

What struggle is satisfied by plentiful branches? But here, the elements have kept the tree to a mere two branches that have managed to survive. Does this continue the story begun at the root base? Is there dramatic tension in the way the branches plunge from their respective points on the trunk? Do the angles put into the branches show the struggle?

 

The final cut for today is to reduce the stub at the top of the tree.

Might I have made a jin in the top of the tree? Certainly that was a choice, but I opted not to. Instead, I’m thinking of carving a shari into the top of the tree starting at the transition point. That’s a chore for next spring, along with building the apex.

Let me know what you think of this BC bonsai to be. I’ll post an updated photo at our Bald Cypress Bonsai page once the rains stop.

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