by Zach Smith | Jan 15, 2017 | American Elm, Care, Elms, Pruning, Styling
All of us have ordinary material hanging around on our benches. What I mean by ordinary material is the not-hundred-year-old masterpiece-in-the-making stuff. I’m a great proponent of working with ordinary material. As I like to say, it’s hard to mess up really outstanding material (though it can be done); but one of the most fun challenges in bonsai is taking a really ordinary, nondescript piece of material and making something nice out of it.
Well, it doesn’t get much more ordinary than this American elm, Ulmus Americana. I’ll tell you the brief history of it. About three or four years ago, I collected an American elm sapling with a trunk base of about an inch. American elm is easy to collect, but for some reason this one died back to near the base of the trunk. I tossed it off the bench and into the “don’t care if you die” section of the nursery. Dutifully it trooped on, throwing some basal shoots that grew a little bit that first year. It hung in there the next year, and by the third year I decided I’d wire the two shoots and put a little movement into them just for laughs. There wasn’t much to lose, after all. I had some extra bench space, so it got promoted off the ground.
This past year I let the tree run some more, and it gained strength as you can see by the two vegetative shoots coming off the base and apex of the two trunks, respectively.
Today I decided to have a little fun with this survivor. I took off everything that didn’t look like a graceful twin-trunk American elm bonsai-to-be, wired it out and here it is. There’s no branching on the main trunk, but there are dormant buds on the trunk that will emerge come spring. I think this guy may turn into something one day. What do you think?
I’m inclined (no pun intended) to think the above design will work best, but I wanted to see how straightening the main trunk might change the appearance. What’s your take on it?
The key takeaway from this post is that you may have any number of ordinary pieces of material hanging around on your benches waiting for some styling magic. You’re the magician. The main thing is to work on them. Not all will turn into exciting bonsai, but as you gain experience you’ll find that you can make just about anything better. Think of what this will mean for your awesome trees.
by Zach Smith | Jan 7, 2017 | Bald Cypress, Elms, Pines
Yesterday we got a rare bout of freezing rain and sleet, enough to put a light coating on everything. Well worth documenting.
Temps fell to the low 20’s this morning. This shouldn’t be cold enough to kill anything on my benches, especially since it’ll warm up a bit today.
by Zach Smith | Jan 2, 2017 | Care, Elms, Potting, Soil, Styling
And so, armed with some new handmade pots that I wrote about yesterday, my trigger finger has suddenly gotten itchy. To satisfy my need to create bonsai, I went out to my growing area and decided this Hackberry, Celtis laevigata, could be successfully lifted and made into something that can look good immediately this spring.
This one has been in the ground about four years, starting its bonsai journey as a pencil-thick seedling. This past year the tree put on a lot of strong growth, which helped thicken the trunk base to about 1″ diameter. But there’s a really long and straight section of trunk that continues on from the lower trunk area, which by the way has some nice movement. What would you do with something like this?
Here’s the answer I saw. By taking off the main trunk at the point where those two nice sub-trunks emerged, I now have a rudimentary crown for a bonsai that just happened to grow on its own for me. Makes sense, right? So the next move was to cut the tree out of the ground.
Another really nice thing about this Hackberry is that it came up with a good root system. Since the tree did not grow in place from seed, there wasn’t a tap root to have to deal with. So I’ve got a head start on good radial roots and a fibrous root system.
Now everything’s been pruned back where it needs to be for now. I’ve established a nice set of proportions in the crown of the tree that complements the size and height of the trunk. The roots have been cut back to fit a bonsai pot. And isn’t that trunk movement and character nice for a young tree?
And so, taking one of those nice Byron Myrick ovals I wrote about yesterday, I’ve now got a neat little Hackberry bonsai-to-be. Assuming all goes well, this tree will have a pretty complete broom-form design by the end of the 2017 growing season. I’ll post it for sale sometime in the spring.
Let me know what you think. Have you worked with Hackberry before?
by Zach Smith | Jan 1, 2017 | Care, Elms, Potting, Styling
So I’m getting ready for the 2017 bonsai growing season, and that means stocking in my first round of bonsai pots. Now, the world of handmade bonsai pots is an art all to itself. This is not to suggest that there’s anything wrong with inexpensive training pots, of course – I use them myself from time to time. But my preference is to use nice handmade pieces of art to create my bonsai compositions. Art in art, right?
Yesterday I visited Byron Myrick’s studio and came away with 14 pieces. These coupled with the five I had had shipped in by Chuck Iker last week (the first five shown below) gives me a great head-start on my 2017 work. Don’t these two guys create awesome pots? If you prefer potting your own trees and really want to show them to best advantage, you can’t go wrong with either of these top-flight artists.
I have a personal preference for glazed pots, as you can probably tell. Since I grow mostly deciduous trees, the glazed pot is a natural complement – though frankly I’ll use a glazed pot on any species as long as the color works.
Tune in tomorrow to find out what happened with one of these pots and this Hackberry (Celtis laevigata):
by Zach Smith | Jan 1, 2017 | Bald Cypress, Care, Collecting, Elms, Hawthorn, Hornbeam, Maples, Oaks, Sweetgum
Happy New Year to all of you!
And many thanks to all of you who helped Bonsai South grow in 2016. We’ve been doing better each and every year since I relaunched the business in 2010, and I’m happy to report that 2017 looks like it will be another record-setting year.
What can you expect this coming year and into the future? The mainstay of our business is obviously larger collected specimens of various species – Bald cypress, Hawthorns, Oaks, American hornbeam, Sweetgum, Elms, and so on. We’ve also done well with field-grown specimens of not only these but also non-native species such as Chinese elm. Our plans for 2017 include adding more species along with greatly expanding our growing field; obviously we will also continue the tradition of collecting the best material we can find. We expect to roughly double 2017 production, with plans for much more in subsequent years.
I get a lot of inquiries about new material, as you can imagine. The Winter 2017 collecting season begins now, so in the coming weeks I’ll be posting photos of new collects. When spring gets here there will be lots of new material for sale.
As always, we welcome any specific requests for trees you may have. Just send me a note via our Contact page.
by Zach Smith | Dec 26, 2016 | Care, Collecting, Elms, Styling, Water Elm, Wiring
Earlier in the season I began a fun raft-style Water-elm project that will take a few years to become a great bonsai. But I have no doubt how it’s going to turn out. Here’s the first photo I took of this very rough specimen:
There’s gobs of growth on this three-trunk potential future raft. There’s a bonsai in there somewhere, but there needs to be more than three trunks. This is never a problem with a water-elm that has a recumbent trunk or connecting root.
In order to style any piece of material sitting in front of you, you have to develop at least a rudimentary plan. Here it’s simple: make the three trunks look like something, to get an idea of the possibilities down the road. So I’ve cut away everything that didn’t look like a triple-trunk raft in the making. The smallest trunk has the lowest branches and a complete though juvenile structure; the middle trunk has a nice upper-level branch structure with the branches in the right positions; the leftward, largest trunk has suffered dieback but has a couple of upright shoots that I can wire upward in order to rebuild the trunk. It’s not much yet, but I can absolutely make something nice out of this piece of material.
The first two photos were taken in July (2016), by the way. Now it’s almost the end of the year, and here’s what I’ve got.
What I started with in July has grown out profusely. The branch structures on the two smaller trunks have developed quickly and need trimming back. The new upright shoot on the largest trunk has grown out over a foot in length and should produce a rebuilt trunk in another season or two. But what’s best of all is I have gotten new shoots to pop on the connected root. That means I’m not limited to three trunks anymore. Now there’s a real raft in the making.
I keep an old pair of concave cutters handy for work in the root zone (rusty from the wet work, but sharp). I recommend this practice, as you want to keep your best tools out of the soil where they can be quickly dulled by the inorganic soil component(s).
The ugly root is gone now, revealing a more pleasing surface root beneath.
I also keep an old pair of knob cutters handy for working in the root zone. Here I’m rounding off the cut I made with the concave cutters.
Now it looks better.
You may have noticed a few photos ago that I have also removed some shoots that grew near the base of the main trunk, plus a couple of roots that likewise grew from up on the base of the trunk. These were not aesthetically pleasing and had to go.
Did you notice the ugly abrupt cut on the newly revealed surface root? That too has to be corrected. Here I’m using my concave cutters to make an angled cut.
Now the follow-up with the knob cutters, to make the cut smooth and round.
Now it’s time to step back and take stock of the raft once again. I’ve turned the pot, to make the small new trunk next to the main trunk easier to see (not hidden behind the main trunk). Does this perspective work? Absolutely. Now I can count five trunks for this specimen, three well-established plus too smaller ones to provide depth in the composition of the multiple trunks.
On to the next chore. As I mentioned, the main trunk suffered dieback but did produce a couple of shoots for potential trunk rebuilding. Here I’m cutting away the dead wood near where the new shoot/trunk will be continuing on.
I’ve cut down to “fresh” wood. The new shoot will be allowed to grow untrimmed for a good part of next year if not the whole year. This should induce some healing in the area where I’ve made the angle cut. I’m also hopeful of getting a bud somewhere on the bottom side of the cut area, to enhance healing. We’ll see what happens.
Seal those cuts!
And finally, the leader is wired up and given a little movement. I see a nice five-trunk raft-style bonsai in this rudimentary composition. If you compare this photo to those above, you can see how all of today’s work has really started to bring out the artistry in the future composition. I think I’ll need to change pots with this specimen, but for the time being it can continue developing in this nice old tray.
I’d love to hear what you think of this raft-style bonsai in the making. Did today’s work make a difference? Leave us a comment below.
