by Zach Smith | May 15, 2016 | Care, Elms, Potting, Sweetgum
May is Sweetgum, Liquidambar styraciflua, collecting time. We were gone the first week of the month on vacation so I’m a week behind, but the work has now begun. Here are a couple of specimens I’m sure will make nice bonsai:
This one is on a lateral subsurface root, meaning it needs to be a connected-root style tree. In a couple of weeks it should be producing new buds, and that’s when I’ll have an idea where I’m going with it. Trunk base is 1.75″ and it’s 10″ to the tip of the taller leader (which needs to be shortened, by the way, it’s pretty ugly right now).
This specimen is a little more traditional, with a nice turn to the lower trunk. Incidentally, I didn’t wire that curve into the trunk, it grew that way on its own. This one also has a 1.75″ trunk base and is 10″ to the chop. It’ll be ready for an initial styling next month.
I lifted this Cedar elm, Ulmus crassifolia, today and direct-potted it into this lovely Chuck Iker round. It had terrific branching straight out of the ground; all I had to do was cut it back to shape. The trunk base is just under 1″ and it’s 12″ tall. Nice upright specimen, don’t you think?
In a couple of weeks I’ll know if I was successful with this one. Cedar elms are tough as nails, so I’m pretty confident.
By the way, this is another of my best bonsai trees for beginners. If you don’t have one, get one. You won’t be sorry.
I expect to post these trees for sale next month.
by Zach Smith | May 15, 2016 | Care, Chinese Elm, Elms, Pruning, Styling, Wiring
You may remember this Chinese elm, Ulmus parvifolia, from last November. In this photo, taken in August of 2014, we have a trunk with a new leader and some branches wired and positioned. In the photo below, the end of 2015 has arrived for this tree. It has changed in some obvious and some subtle ways. The branches are ramifying, which is easily done with Chinese elm. The new leader has thickened well, even in the confined space of a bonsai pot. On the subtle side, the bark is getting rougher which is a good sign of maturity.
Here we are in mid-May 2016, and you can see the result of a couple of things I did earlier in the season. For one, I wired up one of the small shoots at the apex of the tree. And I wired and positioned two other shoots to form lateral branches on the developing apex. Remember, this tree is going to be another six or seven inches tall above the original chop, so that means I’m building branches all the way up as the apex comes into being.
Notice I’ve allowed the shoot I wired up to run. This shoot will remain untrimmed, until such time as it has forced thickening of the new section of leader that emerges from the original chop point. This part of building a bonsai cannot be shortcut. All too often you’ll see an abrupt transition at the point of a trunk chop. While this can certainly be hidden on evergreen specimens and even deciduous trees during the growing season, come winter the flaw is all too obvious. We’re all impatient when it comes to creating our bonsai, but this is one step you just have to take the time to do right.
This Chinese elm is going to make a nice upright bonsai in about three more years. This growing season is all about extending and thickening the new leader and continuing to build the crown from the chop upward. I’ll post one or two updates later on to show you the progress.
For those of you just starting out in bonsai, Chinese elm is one of the very best species for beginners. Its “bad rap,” if you will, comes solely from the mass-produced ugly S-curve specimens sold to newcomers. Don’t let that stop you from owning one.
by Zach Smith | May 8, 2016 | Care, Elms, Maples, Styling, Yaupon
Spring is in full force, meaning bonsai development is more or less a matter of moving from one tree to the next and doing pruning, pinching, wiring, unwiring, and on and on. Only repotting season is as intense.
Today, among others, I worked on the three trees below. Each represents a different stage of development, each indispensable to the ultimate goal. What’s important is to understand where your tree is along the way; it’s also vital to understand that not every part of your tree will develop at the same pace. This is where time and experience come in handy. You have to know what your tree needs at any given time, meaning what you can, should and shouldn’t do.
Here’s a neat yaupon, Ilex vomitoria, that I collected this past winter and direct-potted into this really nice Byron Myrick oval. This specimen has two trunks, so tightly together that one partly enfolds the other. I could see the whole design of this bonsai-in-the-making when I collected it.
So there are lots of new shoots now, and I can ask myself the three questions above:
- What can I do now? I can let the tree continue pushing its new shoots. I can also make a design decision on the right-hand trunk. There’s a well-placed shoot on the underside of the trunk. I can chop back the trunk to this shoot.
- What should I do now? I should continue letting the tree grow out to get stronger.
- What shouldn’t I do now? I shouldn’t do any wiring; the shoots are far too tender and will easy snap off.
So I did what I could do, chopping back the right-hand trunk. I like it better shortened; I can build a better crown on this trunk now.
In this photo I’ve neatened up the chop. All I need to do now is seal the chop. Then I wait for the shoots to grow out so I can wire them.
Here’s my “hopeless cause” swamp maple, Acer rubrum “Drummondii.” I wired some branches last year and then neglected the tree for the remainder of 2015. It grew into quite a bush. Time for some thinning, pruning, unwiring, rewiring, and shaping.
In a couple of minutes I pruned out all the excess branches. Now the trunk is visible again. A good start.
Here’s a good example of a “should do.” The leader I wired up last year and let run thickened well. Unfortunately, the thickness was pretty uniform and lacked interest. It wasn’t helping me to enhance taper in the upper part of the tree. So the obvious should-do was pruning the leader to enhance taper and continue the transitioning from the original chop.
But where to prune? In the closeup above you can see there are two options, one lower and one higher. Either would work, however, in order to limit the ultimate height of this tree and get the best tapering in the process I had to cut to the lower shoot.
Here the cut is made and the new leader wired up. I won’t trim the leader for a while, which will allow it to thicken at its base and enhance taper. This grow and clip process is useful both for building an apex and creating believable branches.
I have no idea how this tree will do in the coming years. If it behaves like the other large swamp maples I’ve collected in the past, next year it’ll start rotting out down the trunk beginning at the chop. I hope this doesn’t happen, and I’ll do what I can to prevent it, but the ultimate result is out of my hands.
This water-elm, Planera aquatica, was collected last fall. I wired a couple of the branches that were long enough to take wire last month. Those were “could-do’s.” Then I left it to continue pushing shoots.
Today I was lucky enough to have a lot more could-do’s. In fact, the whole tree got its initial wiring and shaping. I cut the right-hand trunk back, making it into a low thick branch, and went with a slanting style design. There’s no doubt in my mind this is what the tree wants to be.
If you’d like to continue the development of this nice water-elm pre-bonsai, the tree is available at our Elm Bonsai page.
by Zach Smith | Mar 5, 2016 | Care, Elms, Potting, Water Elm
You may remember the story of this water-elm clump, featured in the blog post “How to Make Bonsai Lemonade – Part 2.” I had taken a nice raft-style tree I’d been working on for years, that got almost killed off in Winter 2014, and gave it new life as a clump-style bonsai. Part of that process was potting the tree into this nice Byron Myrick tray. But there was a problem with the composition, at least to my eye. Does anything jump out at you?
While the pot is a very nice one, it just felt too large to me. When the pot is too large relative to your bonsai, it diminishes the impression of size the tree produces making it look more juvenile. The proportions are wrong. Remember, it’s not the purpose of the pot to overwhelm or “outshine” the tree; rather, the pot’s purpose is to complement and thus “frame” the tree. They have to work together. When the pot isn’t right for your tree, your eye will tend to be drawn to that fact as you view it just as it is to a flaw in the tree itself.
I’ve been waiting patiently for signs of swelling buds on my water-elms. Indeed, they come out later that most other species I work with. This past week I saw some signs, so that told me it was time to correct the flaw in this bonsai.
I just got this nice tray in from Chuck Iker. If you compare this photo with the one above, you can see how much different the tree looks now. The pot doesn’t overwhelm the tree. Moreover, the tree now looks larger and more mature. The proportions are just better.
Pot selection is one of the more difficult skills to learn when you’re studying the art of bonsai. We all tend to focus on the trees themselves, and rightfully so. Getting a tree styled properly is no mean task. But that doesn’t mean we can neglect this most important piece of the puzzle.
This tree is now available at our Elm Bonsai sale page. It should be ready for shipping in about three or four weeks max, once it’s leafing out.
Oh, and if you can discover the one rule I’ve blatantly broken with this clump, I’ll give you an ironic 10% off the price.
by Zach Smith | Jan 25, 2016 | American Elm, Care
It occurred to me that the blog I wrote yesterday on the American elm, Ulmus Americana, I lifted, potted and styled wasn’t as helpful as it could have been. For less experienced artists who sometimes struggle with making design decisions, I wanted to explain in more detail my thought process as I studied and then worked on this piece of material.
Let’s start with the tree after lifting and washing the roots. When you look at a piece of material like this, you sort of know there’s a bonsai in there somewhere but you may not be quite sure where it is (meaning “what do I cut off and what do I keep, and why?”). We always work our way from certainty to uncertainty. What this means is, in pretty much every tree you select to work on you know for sure some things about it even if you don’t know everything about it. In the case of this one, I know several things without even settling on the ultimate design. Here they are: the branches are all too long and will need to be cut back to the right silhouette; the lowest branches have to go, there’s no place for them in my ultimate design; the root base needs to be cut flat, taking advantage of the best set of radial roots present; the original leader on this trunk, now dead, needs to be cut off and its base carved out to make the crown look realistic.
What I don’t know, though I have something of an idea, is what my finished branch set is going to look like (and how well the finished product will be). But that’s okay. We always begin with what we’re certain of, and work our way toward uncertainty. What usually happens is that things start clearing up once the work begins.
This next photo is a flash-forward of sorts. You can see I’ve removed the branches that don’t have any part in the final design, as indicated in the photo above. I’ve trimmed back all of the branches to a silhouette that makes sense when compared with the trunk’s thickness, height and taper. And of course I cut that root base flat and potted the tree.
Now, studying the new bonsai in the making I find I suddenly know more. The confusion cleared up, you might say. There are branches on this tree that attract the eye and make it linger. Not good. Something has to be done. In this style of tree, I need the branches to form what might best be termed a “fan-shape” from bottom to top. This means the lowest branches lie the most horizontal, and as you work your way up the tree they get more and more upright until you reach the crown. And that means it’s time to wire this specimen and put those branches where they belong.
Here’s the result. Now the tree is designed, and the design is balanced and harmonious. When viewing the tree there’s nothing that attracts and arrests the eye.
by Zach Smith | Jan 24, 2016 | American Elm, Care
We’re getting deep into our short but seemingly endless Deep South winter, and by next month depression will be kicking in for those of us so inclined. The only good thing about winter is that I get to collect a lot of new material, and do some actual bonsai making. Today I went out into my field-growing area and located a suitable candidate, an American elm (Ulmus Americana).
It’s a little hard to see among the nice winter weeds gracing the growing field, but you there’s a good trunk line and plenty of branch growth. There’s got to be a bonsai in there somewhere.
I first collected this tree four years ago and put it into a nursery container. Two years ago I decided it needed more vigor so I planted it out. The first year it grew some, but this past year it really took off. That told me it was plenty strong enough to lift.
Out of the ground and roots trimmed, here’s what it looks like. You can see the vigorous root growth that started in a nursery pot and took off in the ground. A nice, healthy specimen.
Here it is after a pruning and trimming. This one has a really nice branch set. It’s destined for the classic deciduous tree shape. But it doesn’t look quite right, does it?
This is why we wire trees. If you compare this photo to the previous one, you can see the harmony and balance in the structure. Branches are where they need to be. In 2016, the branches will throw shoots along their length and these will be selected according to whether they enhance or detract from the bonsai’s appearance. In two or three years, this tree will be showable.
If you’ve been looking for a nice American elm bonsai, this tree is available at our Elm Bonsai page.
