Dogwood | Bonsai South

Dogwood Work And Potting

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?

Bonsai Odds & Ends – Hophornbeam & Dogwood

by Zach Smith | Feb 22, 2020 | Care, Dogwood, Hornbeam, Pruning, Styling, Wiring

Eastern hophornbeam, Ostrya virginiana, is a good species for bonsai though seldom grown. It’s a member of the birch family, as is its close cousin the hornbeam. The leaves, however, are coarser. On the good side of the ledger, they produce a rough bark when mature which is quite attractive. Another negative is that they’re hard to lift successfully relative to the hornbeam. I’ve had this smaller specimen for a couple of years now, and I think it’s reached a point where I can style and pot it. You can see I let a leader grow out, in order to produce a nice apex tapering from the trunk chop.

Step one: prune the leader. This is not the ultimate length for the leader, but I don’t yet have obvious buds at the nodes so I’ve pruned long to prevent dieback. Once I get the buds I need, I can train the next stage of the leader.

Next comes wiring some branches and doing a final trim for today. You may be able to see the bud on the left side of the trunk about a third of the way up. I want this bud to grow out; a branch lower on the trunk should produce a more stable design.

You may remember this Roughleaf dogwood from last fall. At the time, I mentioned that the second branch on the left side of the trunk is way too heavy. My intent for this year was to simply chop it off at the right time, counting on the tree to produce one or more buds at the base. To that end, I pruned it pretty hard last fall.

The branch behaved better than I hoped it would. If you look closely you can see two adventitious buds, one near the base and the other halfway between the trunk and the first sub-branch. So I have a couple of options for today: either chop the branch near that second bud, or prune more off the branch to push more energy inward.

I took the conservative approach, taking off two branchlets at the end of the branch. Yes, the tree will activate buds where these were removed; however, it will also send more energy to the two buds that popped on old wood. My plan is to prune the branch back to the bud nearest the trunk; that will enable me to carve down the stub of the original branch, and end up with a branch more in scale with the others on the tree. You may have noticed a lot of ugly leaves on this tree. For whatever reason, the tree never dropped its leaves over the winter; they did endure some freezes, so they got some discoloration. But they didn’t fall. My plan is to remove them soon, as there’s plenty of new foliage now. Let me know what you think.

Roughleaf Dogwood Styling Work

by Zach Smith | Nov 17, 2019 | Dogwood, Pruning, Styling, Wiring

I recently acquired this Roughleaf dogwood, Cornus drummondii, from a local collector. The great trunk base, taper and movement were what drew me to the tree. The styling is on its way, but there’s always more to do. So today I set out to make a few minor adjustments in advance of Spring 2020.

Beginning at the bottom, of course, the number one left-hand branch and the first back branch were ideal to wire together. Why not the number one right-hand branch along with the left-hand branch? Read on and you’ll find out below.

So the trick with both of these branches is in their positioning. They both start out fine, but since dogwoods tend to produce long arrow-straight branches, you have to introduce some movement into them. Also, both branches needed pulling down a bit, which I’ve done here. Subtle changes, but very important.

Here’s why I left that lowest right-hand branch out of the equation in that wiring job. Notice the slender shoot emerging to the left of the thicker branch? It’s actually positioned much more advantageously than the thicker one; therefore my goal for 2020 will be to remove the thicker one altogether, assuming the slim one survives winter and pushes on next year. I’ll have the opportunity to wire it and introduce movement from the start, and once it thickens up it’s going to be in just the right spot.

Another obvious problem with this tree is the very thick branch on the left side up near where the crown begins. Ideally I’d just remove it and hope for a new bud at the base. However, this is not the time of year for this sort of work. Without the strong growth of spring through early summer, there’s a pretty good chance I won’t get a bud there at all. So I’ll likely make this move in the coming year. For now, though, I trimmed it back pretty hard.

The last thing I can do today is to trim back the crown. It was a little heavy toward the right, affecting the balance of the tree, so with some judicious trimming I think I’ve succeeded for the most part in restoring the balance. I’ll need to do more next year; I’ll accomplish that by allowing the branch moving up and toward the left, where the main trunk line veers off to the right, to run and thicken.

I’d love to hear what you think of this Roughleaf dogwood. Also, I expect to have some pre-bonsai stock available next summer, so if you’d like a nice dogwood specimen let me know.

Fascinating Facts About 10 Bonsai Species

by Zach Smith | 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 - 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 - 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.)

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!

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.

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!

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The Blackgum – A Rare Bird For Bonsai, And A Push Of The Envelope

by Zach Smith | Dec 4, 2016 | Blackgum, Care, Collecting, Dogwood, Potting

We’re “enjoying” our second rainy day in a row. As bad as this might sound, there is some positive to it. If I had to pick the ideal conditions for collecting trees during late fall/winter it would be cool but not cold temperatures and a light drizzle. With these conditions, I know any tree I collect is not going to be moving sap. This almost guarantees I won’t lose the tree from drying out through a chop point. I also know the root zone is going to be moist if not outright wet. The soil is easier to penetrate, and once the tree is lifted the roots are not going to dry out before I can water them. So the bottom line is, though I may not be as comfortable as I’d like the trees will be much more so during their transition from the ground to my benches.

Blackgum, aka Tupelo, aka Black Tupelo, aka Pepperidge (Nyssa sylvatica) is a primary tree that can reach heights up to 100 feet. It has a very broad range, from the Deep South all the way to Ontario, Canada. It features furrowed bark similar to Sweetgum, elliptical or oblong leaves that turn a fiery red even way down here, and blue-black berries. Blackgum belongs to the Dogwood family, Cornaceae.

I’ve been wanting to grow Blackgum for bonsai for many years. Though we do have the cousin Swamp Tupelo down here, they aren’t easy to collect. About four years ago I got hold of a handful of seedlings so I could try my hand at the species. I potted up one, which didn’t survive its first winter, and planted out the others in order to thicken them up. At this point in time, I have two left. So the challenge is pretty obvious.

Today I decided to push the envelope again, and lift one of these specimens. Why not? We learn by doing.

Here’s the tree after it was lifted and the roots washed. The growth has been excellent. The trunk base is 2.5″ just above the root crown, and I chopped it at 20″.

Now, there was no way to keep all that root base – the tree wouldn’t fit right in a bonsai pot – so I sawed away most of it.

And the final two steps: the tree is direct-potted into this unglazed Chuck Iker round; and I chopped the trunk back to make the tree about 16″ tall. I envision a final height of about 26″ or so, and the tree may actually end up being a formal upright specimen. Formal upright is possibly the most difficult style of bonsai to get right – so keep your fingers crossed for me.

Finally, I have no idea how well this is going to work. I haven’t worked with Blackgum before, though I’ve wanted to for years. I don’t know how well they take to pot culture. But I figure it’s worth a try, given the positive qualities of the species.

How about you? Have you ever grown Blackgum? I’d love to hear of any experiences out there.

Creating A Dogwood Bonsai

by Zach Smith | Aug 6, 2016 | Care, Dogwood, Potting, Pruning, Styling, Wiring

I posted a blog on this Roughleaf dogwood, Cornus drummondii, this past Thursday. The tree was collected in January of this year, and after a slow start really took off. As I mentioned Thursday, the tree has a lot going for it in terms of character. Given that plus the fact that the tree has recovered so well and quickly, I decided that today I would go ahead and do the initial styling on it. One thing I wanted to avoid was allowing the new branches to get too stiff to bend in 2017.

This view is from the back of the tree. I wanted to illustrate the design principle of making your decisions beginning with things you are very sure of, then moving on through to the things you aren’t so sure of. In this case, there’s a long and straight branch emerging at a sharp angle from the main trunk that, for reasons I can’t explain, I left on the tree. Clearly this branch has to either be removed completely or reduced greatly in length. I was able to cut to a new shoot down the branch, so I did that to get started on the “editing” of the tree.

Here you can see that I’ve shortened the offending branch. It’s not likely to play a part in the final design, but I left part of it on for now (you can always cut more off of the material you’re working on; putting something back on that you just cut off doesn’t work at all).

You may recall from Thursday my impression that I would be cutting to the branch shown here moving off to the left at a good angle, as my primary trunk line. As I studied the tree this morning, I changed my mind. The reason for this has to do with how the tree emerges from the soil. While that particular trunk line could be made to work, I have in mind a round pot for this tree and based on this I felt the tree should terminate in a more upright position. Now, if down the road I change my mind (or the tree’s new owner does so) there won’t be any problem in restyling the tree. But for now, I decided to go with the upright trunk line.

In this photo I’ve cut back the old leader – which was going to happen regardless.

Here I’ve used a wooden block to move the tree into its ultimate potting angle. This will help me as I choose and position branches.

The main trunk gets chopped back to the where the new leader emerges from it.

After much editing of shoots that won’t be part of the final design. You can see the bonsai starting to really take shape. Isn’t the trunk character terrific?

Here I’ve wired all of the branches and the new leader, and positioned them.

I slip-potted the tree into this nice Byron Myrick round, to the greatest extent I could, in order to prevent damage to the roots. I did have to trim some to fit the tree in the right spot in the pot, but overall they got “bruised” to the minimum possible degree.

I really like the way this Dogwood bonsai turned out. By doing the initial styling and potting this year, the tree can get a head-start on next year’s development. All that’s left at this point is to thicken up and develop the crown of the tree, and pinch and prune the branching to create ramification. Roughleaf dogwood is much easier to develop into a well-ramified specimen than its cousin the Flowering dogwood. Don’t get me wrong, I love both species, but each has its own features.

If you’re interested in native species as bonsai, this tree is available at our Miscellaneous Bonsai page. It ships in September.

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