by Zach Smith | Oct 10, 2016 | Care, Elms, Ficus, Pruning, Winged Elm
Every bonsai starts from either a seed, a cutting or a layer. That’s about it, unless you’re into gene splicing or some such. You, as the bonsai artist, enter this picture at a certain point – not necessarily sowing the seed or rooting the cutting or making the layer. Indeed, sometimes we enter the picture a hundred years after the seed got its start – which is awesome and a bit unnerving, mind you.
But this post is about you and I, bonsai artists, entering the picture early in the life of the bonsai-to-be, and long before the design is first established. Most everyone I know who’s in bonsai does at some point try their hand at foundational development. What does “foundational development” mean? This is strictly about making the trunk of your bonsai. Whether you start from a seed, a seedling, a cutting, or a layer, your first task is to grow your new tree to the desired trunk size and trunk shape. This can be done in pots or in the ground. For my money, ground growing is the best and fastest way to get to a sizeable trunk.
I have a lot of trees in the ground, getting bigger each year. I’ll lift them at whatever point I think they can make a nice bonsai – invariably with a trunk thickness that’s a minimum of 1″ varying upwards to about 3″. But while they spend most of their time just growing out however they want, periodically I have to step in to make decisions. In addition to changing the direction of growth, I also have to be mindful of trunk taper. Many species aren’t naturally inclined to put on taper when left alone – Chinese elm is one of the more stubborn examples. So growing and chopping and directing the new growth is essential to making good bonsai in the future.
This Winged elm, Ulmus alata, went into the ground a couple of years ago as a pencil-thick seedling. Winged elm is another species, incidentally, that doesn’t do taper on its own. This one had a nice curve in the trunk, which also doesn’t normally happen naturally, so I felt it was definitely worth growing to size. Last year it puttered along; this year it threw a nice six-foot leader. As you can imagine, the trunk got a lot thicker.
But it’s at this point that intervention is called for. Left alone another year, the entire tree will get thicker – good, to be sure – but the taper that’s present in the lower part of the trunk, the “bonsai part,” will be grown out of the tree. I can’t let that happen.
Luckily, this tree had a smaller leader emerging from the trunk about 8″ above the soil. This made for a perfect place to chop the strong leader.
Here’s the tree after a quick chop, some knob cutter action and cut seal. The leader I’ve left on the tree will be allowed to grow next year, in order to make the transition point smoother. Then it’ll get chopped back close to today’s chop. At that point, the basic trunk size and shape will be suitable for lifting the tree and containerizing it. Then it’ll be ready for the next stage in its life as a bonsai.
Here’s another piece of material I put in the ground a couple of years ago, an Edible fig, Ficus carica. The main trunk has swelled to a basal thickness of 2″, with the tree over six feet tall. The trunks both have nice curves in them, but frankly the larger one is pretty boring as is. The obvious answer to that is to chop it back hard and grow out a new leader. But where to chop?
Here’s a closeup of the trunk. See that nice fat bud? If you strain, you can just see it in the first photo. So I want to be sure I chop this trunk to a bud that I’m confident will grow out next year. Ideally, I’d like the trunk to regrow from just this spot.
And here’s how to hedge your bets. Notice I didn’t chop the trunk near the bud in the photo above – rather, I chopped it at the next node where there just happens to be another nice green bud. I suspect I’ll get growth from both of these spots next year, which will allow me to come back and shorten the trunk further. But it never hurts to have an insurance policy.
If you’re growing your own material for bonsai, it’s important to understand the steps you have to take to achieve your goal for each tree. Timing may not be everything, but in foundational development it’s almost everything.
by Zach Smith | Oct 9, 2016 | Care, Chinese Elm, Elms, Ficus, Flowering, Hawthorn, Potting, Pruning, Styling, Wiring
Sunday morning musings
I love big bonsai. I’ve loved big bonsai since I first got really into the art, and became aware that bonsai could range up to four feet tall. I’ve collected and trained my share of big bonsai. And whenever Cathy is explaining to someone that very odd thing I do, she invariably says I grow “giant” bonsai.
So with that introduction there’s an obvious question to be asked: Can there be big happiness in small packages? The answer is yes (wouldn’t be much of a blog post if the answer was no, right?).
Over the past 25+ years I’ve collected somewhere on the order of 1,500 trees. For the most part these were trees sporting trunks of 2″ basal diameter and up. Yet there’s so much more to bonsai. Through the years I’ve done a good bit of propagation, and I really enjoy it. Whether it’s from seed or cuttings or layers, making new plants gives me a real sense of accomplishment. You might call it big happiness in a small package.
Here’s a prime example of a really insignificant piece of material, a Green island ficus, Ficus microcarpa. I just made this “small package” about eight weeks ago from a much larger bonsai owned by one of our local club members. His tree has produced countless clones for club members over the years. I took a small shoot he trimmed off his tree, dusted it with rooting powder and stuck it in a pot filled with sand. It faithfully produced roots in just over a week, at which time I potted it in a gallon nursery container. I fed and watered it, then waited for it to start growing. It’s quadrupled in mass since then, and a couple weeks ago I carefully pulled it from its nursery container and put it into this nice Chuck Iker round. My plan is to bring it indoors this winter, then next spring grow it bigger still (making more small ones along the way). In time I should have a nice indoor bonsai, as the tree “grows into” the pot. But I’ll tell you, this small ficus brings me a huge amount of pleasure – big happiness, as it were.
Here’s another small package I wrote about in a blog some time ago, a Chinese elm, Ulmus parvifolia. This is another bonsai that started out life as a cutting. In this case, rather than grow the tree on in a larger nursery container or the ground, I potted it straight into a bonsai pot and began its training. Six years later, the tree had developed into a miniaturized Chinese elm with a relatively small trunk. But it developed tons of character along the way. Small package, big happiness. I sent it off to a new home this year, where I know it’s brought a lot of joy.
Here’s an example of big happiness in a really small package. I grew this tiny Water-elm, Planera aquatica, from a cutting I made last year. The cutting wasn’t the normal straight whip most commonly used for propagating by this technique, so it had a ready-made branch structure. Today I put it in this very small hand-made pot. It stands a mere 5.5″ above the soil surface. Does it look like a real tree in nature? You be the judge, but to my old eyes the answer is most definitely.
Oh, just so you can get an idea of the relative size of this “big happiness”….
Bonsai is one of the most unique pastimes there is. When you consider the variety of species, styles and range of expression in the art; the flowers and fruit of certain species; the vision and diligent care of the artist; the quiet character of the miniature tree through the seasons; from the tiniest shohins to the grandest imperial size bonsai, it’s hard to find a more pleasing pursuit.
by Zach Smith | Oct 1, 2016 | Care, Chinese Elm, Elms, Potting, Styling, Water Elm, Wiring
The days are getting shorter, and many if not most of you have already had some cool nights. Your bonsai have also begun to slow their growth. Now, this doesn’t mean they aren’t growing at all, it just means the dynamic growth of spring and early summer has given way to a different set of priorities for your trees. With fall comes a single imperative for temperate zone trees, namely, surviving the coming winter. To be sure, reproduction is near completion for many species – Chinese elms among them. Mine in the landscape are covered in seeds. But beyond this, the trees are working hard on storing food to get them through winter. As a bonsai artist, you may have noticed this phenomenon by way of wire that has suddenly bitten into branches you wired weeks ago. They sat undisturbed for all that time, all was well, then one day you walk out and are surprised to see the wire is binding. This fall swelling is due to food storage activities, and is perfectly normal. It also can be aggravating, but that’s part of the fun of bonsai.
Once you get all the wire off your trees needing it, you don’t want to miss an opportunity to do some pruning and even rewiring if you so choose. The leaves will be falling from your deciduous trees within about eight weeks. Once they’re gone, nothing is going to happen again until spring. There’s certainly nothing wrong with waiting till then to wire your trees again – but don’t forget that spring brings with it chores that must be done at that time. For those of you whose collections are rather large, repotting alone will occupy a great deal of your time once the buds start swelling. I do my share of pruning and wiring at repotting time, but trees that have already been wired the previous fall can go right to the repotting process. It can make a big difference.
This water-elm was a perfect candidate for some fall pruning. The tree is only in its second year of training, but the basic branch structure is done. Next year the tree will move into the ramification stage, where I devote most of my effort to building foliage pads on each of the branches. It’ll start looking more “organized.”
Today’s work consisted of three significant activities:
- I pruned out unneeded branchlets and shoots
- I carved two uros, one of them at the chop transition point in the apex, and treated with wood hardener; and
- I wired and positioned the number one left branch, which is a year younger than the other primary branches on the tree
I won’t touch this specimen again until next spring, at which time I’ll likely do a little more refined pruning and wiring.
Here’s another activity you can do in the fall, depending on the species and your skill level. I’ve been reporting on this Chinese elm during 2016 as I developed it into a nice pre-bonsai specimen. Today I decided the tree was ready for a bonsai pot, so I grabbed this Chuck Iker round off the shelf and cut off enough roots to fit the tree into it.
Is fall really an okay time to be potting trees? Again, it depends on the species and your skill level. I know that root growth is fairly vigorous in the fall, so this tree should recover fine over the next 6-8 weeks – in time for actual cold weather here. There won’t be any significant foliar growth for the rest of 2016, but that’s all right. Come spring of next year, this tree will be ready to explode with new growth, at which time I’ll be able to complete the design. If I wait till spring to pot the tree, the growth will be delayed by a few weeks and I’ll lose a round of growth. This way I get a leg up.
by Zach Smith | Jul 31, 2016 | American Elm, Care, Chinese Elm, Elms, Pruning, Styling, Water Elm, Wiring
There’s nothing like developing a bonsai. Sure, we all have or want “finished” trees in our collection for sheer viewing pleasure, but no destination is fun without the journey to get there.
We’re well into the depths of summer now, and my trees have put on a lot of spring and early summer growth. For material newly in development, it’s time to finish up the first phase of their journey and get them ready for completion of year one. This is a combination of techniques, involving unwiring and rewiring and trimming. These won’t all be done at the same time, even on a given tree. You’ll find that your branches will develop at different rates. You’re likely to remove the wire from your new leader before any of your branches, since that’s where the strongest growth is almost certain to be. And as the weeks roll on, you’ll remove wire successively until it’s all off – at which point it’s time to put wire back on most of those branches.
Here’s one of the big Water-elms I’ve been showing you. From trunk buds this April, here we are with tremendous leader and branch growth in less than three months. At this point I’ve removed all of the wire from the branches; a new round or wiring is coming soon. The wire was removed from the new leader a few weeks ago; it’s been trimmed a couple of times now and I’ve applied new wire to get the shape I want.
And after a good trimming. When you’re building your branches, you want to create the taper that mimics the taper of the trunk by growing and cutting back in stages. Now, these branches are a bit long even though they’ve been trimmed back pretty hard. With water-elm I know this will work fine. In the next year I’ll have much thicker branches, and they’ll have nice taper.
Size really doesn’t matter when it comes to developing bonsai. Even in a small tree, you go through the same stages. Now, there is one significant difference to be aware of when working with small material in development. Though the process of creating the crown of the tree is more or less the same, in the small bonsai it represents a much bigger part of the tree. This means you have to get it exactly right!
Here’s a small Chinese elm I’ve been working on this year. The trunk base is only 1″ near the soil and it’s less than 10″ to the trunk chop, meaning the finished height of this tree will be not more than about 12″. Contrast that with the Water-elm above, which will end up 30-32″ tall. Now, I will need to do a good job on that tree’s apex, so don’t misunderstand my point. It’s just that the small bonsai has to pack a lot into a very small space.
Here’s the next stage in this small bonsai, six weeks after the shot above. Notice how nicely the leader thickened up – so much so that the wire is no more. Notice that I’ve already got some ramification on the branches. Great progress!
One more thing to notice is that I cut the new leader a couple of internodes too long. This is to ensure I don’t have a problem with rebudding. I’ll get a new shoot in each of the leaf axils on the shortened leader. I plan to pick the lowest one, because that will ultimately produce the best tapering in the trunk. But I didn’t cut to the lowest node at this time because I didn’t want to risk the new leader drying out and dying.
This American elm is similar in size to the Chinese elm above. Here we are in early July, with a branch set wired and a new leader doing its thing. Doesn’t look like much at this stage, does it? Oh, it’s got a nice lower trunk, and you can see the potential. But it’s just an early stage bonsai in the making with a lot of miles left to go.
And four weeks later, here’s where we are. Nice growth in the leader, which will need to be even shorter than I’ve trimmed it once I get new buds. The wire has been removed. I don’t yet have any ramification in the branching, but that’s just a matter of time. For now, I need to continue to build the rest of the trunk of this tree and the apical branching.
Bonsai development is all about simple steps. As long as you do the right one at the right time, it’s pretty much like A-B-C.
by Zach Smith | Jul 24, 2016 | Care, Elms, Potting, Pruning, Styling, Water Elm
As I’ve written on at least a couple of occasions, sometimes our best intentions when collecting or working on trees just don’t pan out. Sometimes a tree will die, but just as often a tree may die only partly. You can’t always make something out of these unfortunates, but then again sometimes you can.
A couple of years ago I collecting this Water-elm, Planera aquatica. It started re-budding within a week … at which point I knew it probably wouldn’t make it. As a general rule, at least for Water-elms, if the collected trees starts budding out a week after you collect it it ends up dying. Two to three weeks after collection is a good sign. In the case of this tree, I fully expected it to die. However, it actually put out new growth down the trunk (in more places than you see here), so I kept it watered and ignored it.
Here we are two years later, and part of this tree wants to live. Ordinarily you’d look at what’s here and think, “No way anything will come of it.” So did I, actually. But it was easier to ignore the tree than to unceremoniously pull it from the pot and toss it, so I left it alone.
Fast-forward to 2016, and the tree has put on a four foot-long shoot. What’s not alive on this specimen is rotting away. But there’s a definite clinging to life, so I couldn’t help but think “Maybe I can make something out of it.”
In this photo, you can see more clearly the living vein of wood that’s sustaining the nice little clump of shoots (five, to be exact; I’m liking that prospect). The next order of business will be to cut away all the dead wood. I need to get down to the lemonade in this lemon.
First went the upper trunk; all dead and rotting away.
Now I split off the wood surroun
ding the live vein.
Just about all the dead wood has been cut away in this photo. Although it looks like I could make an upright bonsai out of this remaining material, I’ve got other plans.
First, here’s the root mass associated with this tree. Not bad considering most of the tree died! Now, on to the “finished” product.
I thought that using a stone might be the best way to showcase this survivor. As for the stone, it’s actually a fossil. Over 20 years ago my daughter and I, while creek-walking near our home, stumbled across a number of pieces of petrified palm wood. I still have a good bit of it. While it’s not the sturdiest petrified wood you’ll ever run across, certain pieces of it are fairly tough. For this tree, I was able to make use of a lengthier piece of the stone. I draped some roots over and into the soil, and covered most of the exposed root with moss to keep it from drying out. Only time will tell if the roots decide to grab hold of the stone.
I also need to do considerable work to the three branches I left on the live vein from above, which now forms the main trunk of this tree. But that’s for another time. For now, I’ll just feed and water this unusual Water-elm landscape planting.
I’d love to hear any feedback you might have. Just leave a comment below.
by Zach Smith | Jul 17, 2016 | Care, Elms, Pruning, Styling, Water Elm
This monster Water-elm, Planera aquatica, named Dragon, has really outdone itself this growing season. Certainly the size of the tree and the growing room it has have contributed to this rampant growth. The shoots are by no means at their ultimate desired thickness, but I’ve got a good start and I need to bring them back in so I can build taper. You’ll recall I completely wired this tree earlier in the spring, then had to unwire it in stages as the growing branches started binding. It’s now in need of cutting back.
A few strategic snips later, here’s all that’s left. The only branch I haven’t taken way back is the lowest back branch, which hasn’t thickened enough yet to be pruned. I suspect it’ll get there by fall. Between now and then, I’ll get ferocious back-budding on these branches (you can see I’ve left leaves in place to protect dormant buds in the leaf axils) and will certainly have to do some additional trimming. I’ll post an update later in the season.
