by Zach Smith | Aug 16, 2015 | Care, Elms, Water Elm
The water-elm collecting season is typically in July of each year in the spot I frequent. The area is intentionally flooded each winter to support water fowl and other wildlife, with the water being released beginning in June. Due to high water levels on all of our rivers this year, my collecting area stayed well under water through most of July. This made the season both late and short for 2015. But today I was able to get some specimens for next year. I thought I’d share two of them with you.
This is a unique example of the species. If it survives collecting, it’s going to get a name with “dragon” in it for sure. The trunk base is 6″ across, and it’s roughly 28″ tall from the soil surface though the body of the tree is about 42″ if you measure along it. If you look closely you can see the shari that runs from near the base all the way to near the chop. Very impressive! I can already picture a branch structure for this tree.
Here’s a “hunky” guy of a water-elm, trunk base 4″ and only 18″ to the chop. Nice rootage that I buried to keep it from drying out. It’ll take a few years to grow a new leader on this tree and make the tapering transition look smooth, but this should not be a difficult chore.
Water-elm and bald cypress are hands-down my two favorite species for bonsai. Most of you have probably tried your hand at BC. If you haven’t given water-elm a shot yet, I highly recommend it. The leaves are naturally small and reduce without any special effort, and it’s a species that loves the heat of summer (as long as you give it plenty of water). You can go from a bare trunk to a showable bonsai in as little as three years.
by Zach Smith | Aug 2, 2015 | Care, Chinese Elm, Elms, Pruning, Wiring
You’ll remember this trumpet vine, Campsis radicans, from a couple of weeks ago. As I noted, vines are extremely vigorous growers. I more or less knew this one would come back, and sure enough here we are two weeks later and it’s throwing shoots. Now, I don’t have to be in any rush to wire the tender new growth. The tendrils of vines stay supple for awhile, and I want these to harden off before I attempt to put wire on them; they snap off easily at this stage.
Stay tuned for updates. I’m really looking forward to working on this specimen.
Here’s the water-elm clump I first worked on back in March, in a photo taken yesterday. I’ve left it alone since then so it could gain vigor, and it hasn’t disappointed. Time to do some unwiring and trimming.
About 30 minutes later, here’s what I’ve got. I think this clump is going to be a real winner in another year or so.
The pot may be a bit large for it. What do you think?
And this is the Chinese elm forest I showed you on July 18th. If you look closely you can see the bright green new foliage on each tree. For those of you who’ve worked with Chinese elm, you know they’re simply one of the best species for bonsai. I think this forest will be very presentable next year, and within two or three will be outstanding.
by Zach Smith | Jul 18, 2015 | Care, Chinese Elm, Elms, Potting, Wiring
There are distinct stages in the life of every bonsai. First styling and potting is possibly the purest point of artistic expression in that life. Beginning with a piece of raw stock – and this may be a regular nursery find, a purchased pre-bonsai or even a recently collected tree placed directly into a bonsai pot and now ready to be wired and styled for the first time – we, the artists, see a finished representation of a mature tree in nature just waiting to be revealed.
Once the bonsai has been initially crafted, we wait, water and watch (and sometimes worry). Assuming all goes well, the tree resumes or continues its growth and begins to assume the shape, in trunk and branch, that we envisioned. To the extent that things go well, we next settle into the routine chores that support the development of our trees. And that’s very good.
But what about the not so good? I’m confident you won’t be surprised when I say things don’t always go to plan. Even seasoned bonsai artists are subject to Murphy’s Law and the occasional stubborn tree. Many of us are prone to neglecting one or more of our trees due to competing obligations. I’m one of the great proponents of benign neglect when it comes to bonsai. I learned early on that trees simply don’t like being doted upon. So when you reach the point where you have enough trees and enough patience to leave them alone for distinct periods of time, you’re well on your way to success. And then you learn … too much neglect is very bad.
I love forest plantings, so I put together this Chinese elm group back in February of this year. It was composed of small, straight trees in order to create the impression of a stately stand of trees in an open field. In this particular case, I went with seven trees.
So after assembly, I watered and fed and set the new bonsai on one of my benches. Except for watering, I deliberately ignored the group. As spring came, other trees tended to crowd around it as I potted them – which was fine, I knew the group just needed to be left alone well into spring.
As spring brought budburst, all of the trees in this planting responded as I expected by greening up, so my forest was well on its way. I continued to leave it alone, only pausing to look as I passed.
Then one day I noticed a few of the trees were not pushing shoots. Not so good. I knew immediately what this meant, but I resisted the urge to rip them out. I didn’t want to disturb the roots of the trees that were doing well. But I knew the day would come when I’d have to replace a few dead trees!
Fast-forward to today. I think you can see the telltale signs of benign neglect. I’ve got three dead trees that need to be replaced, and a lot of trimming to do. No time like the present.
It turned out I have a temporary shortage of Chinese elm “sticks,” so this forest is temporarily reduced to five trees. I’ll add at least two more next spring from my new crop of cuttings that are busily rooting. But regardless, I think this developing forest cleaned up pretty good.
Okay, that’s the good and the not so good. What about the ugly?
Back in 2010 I rooted my first crop of Chinese elm cuttings. Some went into nursery pots, some went into the ground, and this one went directly into this rustic bonsai pot I’d had for about 10 years. I’m not entirely sure why I went to a bonsai pot with this rooted cutting all those years ago, but it’s sat on my bench now for all that time. It even survived the ice storm of 2014! I repotted it once, incidentally, and have done some pruning on it as it’s developed more or less on its own.
But … there’s really no getting around the fact that this is an ugly tree! Okay, it’s not one of those horrid “S” curve Chinese elms, but it’s not a whole lot better either. At the beginning of this post I suggested that the first styling and potting of a bonsai is possibly the purest point of artistic expression in the life of a bonsai. While I believe this is true, it certainly doesn’t mean we bonsai artists get it right every time. Trees often don’t grow exactly the way we want them. Sometimes they drop strategic branches and must be restyled. Sometimes we think we’ve found the front, then one day that turns out to be the back. In the case of my sad little Chinese elm above, it just didn’t have all that much to say as it struggled toward some common-enough tree form.
Today I finally saw something else in this guy, so I reached for my concave cutters and shears and restyled the tree in about 10 seconds. Is this something that looks more like a real tree? I think so. Compare the edited version of this specimen with my starting point. It’s hard to imagine the form above as something much larger and older. But the one to the left? Yes, I definitely see it.
The last step was to root-prune and repot the tree. I had this unique Chuck Iker round sitting empty. I think I’ve found the tree for it.
So, did I overcome the ugly? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.
by Zach Smith | Jun 6, 2015 | Care, Elms, Potting, Water Elm, Wiring
As most of you know, the winter of 2014 was extremely harsh down here, so much so that I lost a number of trees during a snow and ice storm that literally froze my trees to their benches. I wasn’t alone. I only spoke with one or two of my clients up north who didn’t lose trees as well. But you move on. You get more trees, you train them, you pot them, you build them into respectable bonsai. And that’s what I’m doing.
This is one of the trees I lost last year, photographed in 2012. I had collected it in 2009, began its training that year and put it into the unique, vintage Richard Robertson oblong pot you see here. A perfect match of tree and pot, to my way of thinking. But after last year’s killing winter all I had left was the pot, which sat forlorn under one of my benches.
Enter this tree, an August 2014 collect that had refused to bud anywhere but right near the base last fall. With water-elms you don’t give up until you’re absolutely sure they’re not coming back. So this year, while all my others budded and this one re-budded near its base, I reminded myself to just leave it alone. Sure enough, come late April I saw a bud up the trunk. Whenever you see one there’s more than one, so I scoured the trunk and sure enough, there was a bud up near the very top of the tree. Amazing! So I resumed ignoring it, and buds popped everywhere and then turned to shoots and then started thickening.
Here’s the tree after trimming the excess branches, wiring up a nice branch set, giving the trunk a good cleaning, and potting into my classic Richard Robertson oblong. Isn’t it lovely?
From this point to the degree of training in the tree above will be about three years. Water-elms ramify without any coaxing, and you can stop wiring and go with grow and clip in year two.
by Zach Smith | May 29, 2015 | American Elm, Care, Elms, Potting, Wiring
I’m sure you remember this American elm, Ulmus Americana, that I first posted last month. My goal with this tree is to train it into a classic American elm shape, what’s called vase-shape. I did the initial wiring on March 11th, and left the tree completely alone to grow out and set the position of the leaders. American elm is a vigorous grower, even in a bonsai pot, so I figured I’d get a lot of the basic development done this year.
Here’s the same tree six weeks later. The main leader has gained a solid foot of growth, which has thickened it significantly at the base. The secondary leaders have also put on strong growth. My main goal today is to trim the tree back to its vase-shape, and to reposition the trunk to a more upright position.
Here’s the final result. I cut the central leader back a little harder than the others, to allow them a chance to catch up in girth. I also carved the original chop, in order to make the tapering of the trunk smoother.
This tree is available for sale on our Elm Bonsai & Pre-Bonsai page.
by Zach Smith | Apr 12, 2015 | American Elm, Care, Elms, Wiring
I found this American elm, Ulmus Americana, growing as a volunteer on my property. I dug it this winter and potted it directly into this beautiful Paul Katich oval. It responded as expected – American elms are very easy to collect – by throwing buds right on time this spring. Unfortunately, it failed to bud all the way up the trunk and the buds that appeared were not exactly in strategic locations as you can see in this first photo. So what to do?
We all know the art of bonsai is about designing trees. But let’s face it, for the most part we work best when the classic “stair step” branch pattern can be identified and brought to fruition. Take another look at the tree to the left; most of the stairs are just not there.
This is where we have to think outside the box. First of all, the classic shape of American elm is definitely not along the lines of “first branch – second branch – back branch” and so on. In fact, it’s described as “vase-shaped.” American elm trunks tend to fork fairly low, with two or three major upright sub-trunks which divide further, and so on until you reach the smallest branches. So considering the specimen at left, can we make something like this happen?
Here’s what about 10 minutes of work brought about. Contrast this bonsai-in-training with the messy trunk plus shoots above. You can see exactly where this specimen is heading, even though the new growth is very juvenile.
This tree will not end up with the classic vase shape of the American elm, but it will be a nice broom-form specimen. Not a bad way to handle questionable material.
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