Bonsai Odds & Ends – Huckleberry, Chinese Elm, Pocomoke Crape

by | Mar 22, 2020 | Blueberry, Care, Chinese Elm, Crape myrtle, Elms, Potting, Styling
Here’s an update on my big Huckleberry bonsai that I potted this spring. As you can see, it has filled out with foliage. It’s normal for Huckleberries to take three years to really get “bushy” with foliage: year one is typically all structure building, making the branch structure and starting the apex; year two continues this process, along with some sub-branching development; and year three is when the tree first fills out. It also takes three years for a good blooming and fruiting. This tree put on a very nice show of flowers, and now it’s got a lot of fruit that’s ripen in a month or so. Now, it’s important to understand what the explosion of foliage this year means, and what it doesn’t mean. What it means is, the sub-branching (aka ramification) begins with this process. If you study this photo, you’ll see that I have a lot of foliage but no real organization at the secondary and tertiary branching level. There’s nothing to be done about that this year, except to prune overlong secondary shoots and watch for branching that’s gotten out of hand (it gets pruned severely or off altogether). Next year, I’ll have hardened off sub-branching that will be ready for grow and clip and editing, which will be the real building of the interior. But for now, I’m enjoying the vibrant health of this specimen. It’s growing exactly as I want it to.
I collected this Chinese elm in February. It’s a nice specimen – not as much taper as I’d like, but left to their own devices Chinese elms do not typically put on taper. This is normal for most deciduous trees, which want to grow straight and tall as fast as they can. But I can work with this one. There’s subtle taper from base to trunk chop, and I can easily build more into the crown. I’ll begin the process this year. The first step will be to get a basic structure going, and today I did that. I’ll post a blog showing the details this coming week.
Here’s the Pocomoke Crape I wrote about last weekend. I ordered in a custom pot (a beautiful Lary Howard piece), and went to town on that huge root mass yesterday. I brought the tree more upright during the potting process, and I think this makes for a more dramatic composition. I’d love to hear what you think about it.

Flower Power

by | Feb 11, 2020 | Blueberry, Care
Just a quick blog this evening featuring a wonderful flowering species for bonsai, Huckleberry (blueberry). I’ve only been working with them for four or five years now, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how freely they bloom in a pot. It only takes a year in a pot before the flowering begins. Each year, the show gets better. There’s fruit as well. This specimen is entering its third year in a nursery pot. This year it’ll go into a bonsai pot.
You may recognize this specimen as one in my collection that I recently potted. Not to let that stop it, it’s put on a pretty decent show considering how much work was done to it in the past year. Just wait till next year. I’ll be posting Huckleberry specimens for sale this spring, so stay tuned if you’d like to have one on your bench.

Some Things That Are Waking Up

by | Feb 1, 2020 | Bald Cypress, Blueberry, Care, Flowering, Hawthorn, Mulberry
Each winter there are certain specimens of certain species that decide to wake early from dormancy. It just takes a little warmth and sunshine, and they start popping buds. We just finished up Bald cypress collecting season last week. This one was collected two weeks ago and it, along with some others we harvested, is already pushing buds. It looks like we’re heading into a slight warming trend over the next couple of weeks, so this tree should have obvious foliage on it by the end of February.

Here’s a Red mulberry, Morus rubra, that I’ve had on the bench for over a year. It was in an oversized pot, and had thrown branches that were six feet in length. Starting this year it gets to be a shohin bonsai. Last week I did a number of it, top and bottom, and it fit nicely with all that coaxing into this Chuck Iker round. I think it’s going to make a great composition. You probably can’t see in this photo, but it’s got lots of green buds that are swelling and should be open in a week. Styling it is going to be a lot of fun.
This Parsley hawthorn was lifted from our field growing area on December 14th of last year. Parsley haw is one of the first species to leaf out each year, and this tendency is enhanced if you do root work on them. I cut back all of the roots hard on this specimen, and it’s doing just what I expected. Judging by the buds I see, I’ll be able to create a nice branch structure in about six weeks.
This Huckleberry was also lifted on December 14th. It’s another species that comes out very early, whether you do root work on them or not. I have some on the bench in bloom, and most are just starting to leaf out. I don’t know about you, but I’m really getting excited about the 2020 growing season. I still have some collecting to do, which will probably extend into early March, but it looks like an early spring is headed our way.

Huckleberry #5 Potted

by | Jan 10, 2020 | Blueberry, Care, Potting, ZPC
Here’s where we left off with Huckleberry #5. With the fall trimming and carving done, I set it back on the bench and got busy with other chores. Flower buds on my Huckleberries are swelling, and a few are already opening. With the mild winter, I expect these trees to begin pushing foliar buds as early as February. That tells me it’s okay to pot up this specimen, which is now two years out of the ground.
First the cleanup. I brushed off the 2019 bark (it exfoliates yearly). Next was some finer carving and sealing those areas with PC Petrifier.
Next came choosing a pot. I’ve always loved this vintage Richard Robertson piece, and I thought it would work great with this tree. But when I set it in, the pot was just too long for the height of the tree.
The same thing turned out to be true of this fine Paul Katich piece. The color was great, depth was fine, it was just too long and I found out the same way as with the Robertson piece.
I think this Lary Howard pot gets me very close to where I need to be. The shorter length of the pot makes the proportions work out much better. I’d love to hear any feedback.

Harvesting A Hefty Huckleberry

by | Dec 26, 2019 | Blueberry, Care, Collecting, Potting, Pruning
It’s Huckleberry collecting time, and today I harvested a hefty one. Here it is, right out of the ground with the roots washed off. The trunk base is 2.5″ above the root crown. This is about the trunk size limit for the species, as near as I can tell. I’d estimate the age at 25-35 years.
Those of you who have followed my work for any length of time know I’m a firm believer in chopping roots hard. Why? It’s all about the bonsai pot. If you can’t get the roots you’ve chopped into a bonsai pot, with some room to spare for the new roots that are going to sprout from the cut ends, you’ve just handed yourself a big future headache! Yes, I’ve been guilty of this in the past, and more than once. But I do learn, even if it’s sometimes a slow process. So these roots are cut back enough to comfortably fit the bonsai pot this tree will go into. Is the tree at risk? Absolutely not! When you collect deciduous and broadleaf evergreen trees, you’re removing not only most of the root but also most of the branching as well. This balances the tree perfectly, so when new roots and shoots get going there’s no undue stress. The tree “wants” to live, and it does what it has to in order to live. (Note: Boxwoods are a special case among the broadleaf evergreens, in that you have to leave foliage on the branches or you risk losing them; you can thin the branching, just don’t cut back to a bare trunk or branches.)
Here I’ve reduced the trunk to its proper line. I’ve also turned the tree. Is this a better front? It does have something going for it.
This is the better front. If you compare this photo to the one above, you can see the trunk has a little curve in it from this angle and that’s definitely better. There’s also a good rootage presentation from this angle as well.

And here’s the tree potted up. The trunk is chopped at 15-16″, which should produce a finished height of about 24″ or so. I love the color and character of the trunk, and I’m confident this Huckleberry is going to be a fine bonsai in three or four years.

Let me know what you think of this specimen.

An Early Start On Collecting Season

by | Dec 14, 2019 | Blueberry, Care, Collecting, Flowering, Hawthorn, Potting, Pruning
I planted out some Parsley hawthorn whips a few years ago. True to the old adage, “first year sleeps, second year creeps, third year leaps,” this year I’ve noticed a number of the specimens have put on some heft. A few have reached my minimum for lifting, namely, a trunk base of 1″. While I’ll certainly leave most to get bigger still, it’s nice to have some smaller specimens to offer.
I’m not sure what happened to this one or when, but it’s grown itself into a raft. Nice.
Here’s the first one on the potting bench. I have to choose between two leaders, either of which would do fine. You can see I’ve got some good roots to work with. My experience with hawthorn has been that they do quite well with a lot less root than you think they need when collecting them. My survival rate through the years has been 90% or better.
Yep, not much root at all. I’m still trying to decide on the leader.
I went with the straighter one. Not sure if it would have been better the other way, but the good news is this tree will produce multiple buds where I chopped that other leader. If I want, I can grow a new leader from one of those buds. So it’s not a big deal one way or another.
And here’s the raft, all potted up. I’m thinking this is going to make a very cool bonsai. What do you think?
I lifted this Huckleberry today. I’m very excited about it. I see a round pot and foliage confined to the upper part of each trunk. It’ll take a season or two to grow the left hand trunk the way I want it, but the results should be spectacular.
I have a choice of more than one front with this specimen. Which would you choose?