by Zach Smith | Aug 4, 2016 | Care, Dogwood, Styling
I have written on more than one occasion about the principle of benign neglect as it pertains to bonsai. Because bonsai is a hands-on pastime, the beginner often becomes convinced that creating and maintaining their trees is almost constant work. In fact, aside from daily watering and checking for any pest or disease issues, bonsai is a lot less doing than you might think.
I wrote a blog about the species Roughleaf dogwood, Cornus drummondii, earlier this year. I’ve worked with dogwoods on a limited basis over the past 25+ years; this occasion has really opened my eyes to a fine native species for bonsai.
I collected this specimen on the same day as the one in my blog post. I think you can readily see the potential – great old bark on the trunk, nice taper and movement, and there’s even a bonus natural shari thrown in. This tree, along with the other one that had been growing nearby, apparently had suffered the fate of many trees growing alongside a highway. The occasional weed control project, perhaps, with bush knife or some tractor-mounted horror. Maybe someone parking too close and scraping the lower trunk. It’s not hard to imagine, though you can’t be sure exactly what happened. As a bonsai artist, all we can say is “thanks.” So much great material comes from the good “un-intentions” of others.
This photo is from May 8th, by the way.
It took a good while before the growth kicked in on this specimen. Here we are two months later, and I’m finally getting some shoot extension. Collecting was successful; now we’re getting somewhere.
And lastly, today’s appearance. The roots are firm and the growth is rampant. Because dogwood wood really gets stiff once it hardens off, the tree needs an initial styling soon. Fortunately, with a good set of roots the tree won’t mind, even at this time of year.
This is another example of (mostly) benign neglect. I’ve fed this tree and watered it. Not a single leaf has been trimmed or pinched. I’ve moved it on the bench less than two feet from where I first set it. The only active thing I’ve done is to stabilize the trunk (see the photo above) using a native American pottery shard wedged against the edge of the pot. And that … is it!
The moral of the story is, your trees don’t love your attention near as much as you love giving them attention. To borrow the timeless Japanese principle, less is usually more. As you continue on your bonsai journey, this principle will get easier to apply.
Final note: I’ve included some detailed comments in the captions on the first photo above, to give you an idea of my thought process in planning the design of this tree. To be sure, there’s often more than one potential design in a tree. You as the artist get to make the final call on the raw material you start out with. For those trees I go ahead and design before posting, I try to find the best expression of the tree I can. Balance and harmony, in a mature representation of a tree in nature, are the desired end-result. This takes a good trunk line, taper and movement; well-placed branches; and finally, diligent pruning and pinching to produce foliage in scale.
by Zach Smith | Jul 3, 2016 | Care, Dogwood, Pruning, Styling, Wiring
I collected this Roughleaf dogwood, Cornus drummondii, earlier this year. This photograph, taken in late January, gives you an idea of the quality of the specimen. It looks even better in person! The tree was a little slow in coming out – this shot from March shows the buds just starting to emerge. Growth was fairly slow well into May, but then it just exploded.
See what I mean? I’ve been planning to dive into this tree for three or four weeks now. Today I had a client in for a workshop, so I took the opportunity to walk through the initial styling of a significant piece of collected material.
This represents the better part of an hours’ work. A lot of extra branches were removed, simplifying the design. Our bonsai are expressions of a tree distilled to its basic elements. Too much does not make for a better bonsai. So in producing this basic branch set I’ve begun the process of making a believable bonsai.
As part of this process I removed the larger of the two leaders on the main trunk, going on the principle of enhancing taper whenever possible. I’ll have additional carving to do in the area where I removed the larger leader this coming spring; for now, I wanted to keep the invasive work in check because this tree will have less vigor going into the depths of summer and I didn’t want to overtax it. When you do this type of work on your trees, always bear in mind the time of year and the characteristics of the species you’re working with. Although Roughleaf dogwood is far more vigorous that its cousin the Flowering dogwood, it does slow down in summer.
You can also see a few principles of designing multi-trunk bonsai illustrated in this specimen. The smaller/shorter tree has foliage that’s lower in the composition than the larger/taller tree. The larger tree does not have any foliage that is crowding the growing space of the smaller tree; if this happens in the wild, the smaller tree does not get enough sunlight to survive. The movement of the trunk of the smaller tree reflects, while not exactly mimicking, the movement of the trunk of the larger tree. This type of composition is usually referred to as father/son or mother/daughter, depending on whether the tree is masculine or feminine. I think this one qualifies as father/son. What do you think?
This tree may be ready for its first bonsai pot next spring. The deciding factor will be how much development vigor is needed in the apex of the larger tree. If this can be done in a bonsai pot, then I’ll certainly take the plunge.
by Zach Smith | Mar 25, 2016 | Care, Dogwood, Flowering
One of the key skills the bonsai artist must learn is how to identify the various species he or she intends to work with. This is especially true when you collect your own from the wild. This is a challenge when you’re first starting out, though I believe it’s a fun one. For those of us who work primarily with deciduous trees, which are usually collected in winter when they’re devoid of foliage, there’s an extra challenge. Identifying species is a matter of examining the foliage, bark, dormant buds (if present), and sometimes flowers and fruit. It’s by far most common to make our identification solely on the basis of foliage.
I posted this photo on January 23rd, along with the lament that I have never had success in collecting larger red maples (as this is what I was sure it was). I was out hunting bald cypress that day, but high water had other plans. So when I spotted this twin-trunk and another really nice specimen I thought it was better to go home with two trees that probably wouldn’t make it rather than empty-handed.
Then the wait began. It took a solid four weeks for tiny buds to appear, but they finally did. What’s more, they appeared in opposite pairs which is exactly the way they should have. Only there was something not quite right about them. They weren’t red. Now, the old saying goes “there’s always something red on a red maple.” Newly swelling buds, flowers, fruit, new leaves, the petioles once the leaves have greened, and then winter buds to complete the cycle. This red maple was missing red buds. What did it mean?
The leaves finally began opening tentatively. They were light green in color. Not red. Hmm. That wasn’t right, either. What’s more, their shape was all wrong. Rather than the normal three-lobed leaves with serrations that red maples sport, these were non-lobed and smooth and rather slender.
It was at this point that I took another look at the bark of these specimens. Now, as the red maple begins developing bark it produces fissures which in time grow deeper and rougher. My first impression here was that these trees were just in the beginning stages of bark development. But with the leaves all wrong, I took a closer look and realized that these were plates forming, not fissures. What’s more, they seemed to be in a pretty regular grid pattern. There’s one group of species I well knew that produced bark like this: dogwood. And what species of dogwood do you find in or near the swamps? Roughleaf dogwood, Cornus drummondii.
I was dead wrong with my tree ID back in January, and I couldn’t be happier about it. That means I get to train two more trees which will feature characteristics like this one:
This is the first and so far the only roughleaf dogwood I’ve trained as bonsai. My experience so far is that it ramifies much better than flowering dogwood, Cornus florida, which I have grown as bonsai in the past. Leaf-size reduction is likewise superior. So with great bark and foliage, not to mention superior trunk character, I think it’s got everything you could ask for. (This tree has been posted for sale at our Miscellaneous Bonsai sale page.)
If you look closely you can see the buds opening on this one, which I re-shot today. I’ll need to chop it back some more next season, plus lose the larger of the two leaders on the main trunk to enhance taper. But I couldn’t be more excited about this new dogwood, now that I know what it is.
Finally, a closeup of the foliage. Isn’t it great? On another interesting note, while the buds on this and the other dogwood I collected emerged light green in color, the new leaves have turned red while unfolding. This mirrors, to a degree, the fall color we sometimes get on our dogwoods. The color is caused by anthocyanins, which produce the reds and purples we see in autumn leaves (they are breakdown products of chlorophyll) as well as in flowers and fruit. As the leaves harden off, chlorophyll production ramps up and the red disappears.
by Zach Smith | Mar 13, 2016 | Care, Dogwood, Flowering, Styling, Wiring
You may remember this roughleaf dogwood, Cornus drummondii, from last spring. I had gotten off to a good start on a broom-form specimen following the initial collecting of it, in 2012, and the subsequent recovery. With a good branch set underway, I had potted the tree in this beautiful Chuck Iker round.
Unfortunately, the tree suffered a bit of a setback last year, possibly from the potting stress, so I went into benign neglect mode with it and did nothing else in 2015. This photo, by the way, was from March of 2015.
Here we are in March of 2016, and the tree is putting on some nice strong growth. I believe, at least at this point, that the setback it suffered last year is behind it. So my thinking today was, why not go ahead and do some shaping so the tree can get back on course?
In about 10 minutes I was able to put a good shape into this very nice little tree. I only cut one small branchlet and pinched one growing tip; otherwise, all of the growth here is going to go untouched well into late spring. This is the way the tree will continue to gain strength.
Am I going to do any more pinching or pruning this year? That depends on how strong the tree turns out to be. I’ll know this in about four to six weeks.
Stay tuned for more on this tree and this species.
