by Zach Smith | Jun 23, 2017 | Care, Ficus, Potting, Pruning, Styling
Well, it’s officially summer and if we ever get out of this rainy pattern it’s going to heat up and the spring breeze will be O-ver. This means we get tropical temperatures without any of the other benefits of the tropics. No white sand, no crystal clear blue-green water, no ocean breeze. What can you do?
Last year I got a cutting from a Green island ficus, Ficus microcarpa, owned by the elder statesman of our local bonsai club. I had admired the tree for years, but never tried my hand at it because keeping tropicals in a non-tropical environment was not something I was prepared to do. But I finally got the urge. I love the appearance of Green island ficus. The leaves are bright green, small, glossy, and round with a slightly pointed tip. Here’s my first Green island ficus bonsai-in-the-making.
It’s not much to look at, but considering where it began I’m happy with it. In a bonsai pot it isn’t going to grow very quickly or with as much vigor as it would in a larger nursery container, but I’m not in a huge hurry with it.
This past winter I learned something about this species that just amazed and excited me. Each time we were threatened with a freeze I brought it inside and set it on my desk. Typically it would stay in for a week or so before going back out. But each time I brought it in, I noticed that it kept on growing. The species is not a super fast grower, but it seems to grow some all the time.
So now I had an indoor bonsai species to work with and enjoy. How could I say no? This one has been such a pleasure that I made my mind up to venture into a few other indoor species – Willow-leaf ficus, Portulacaria afra (Dwarf jade or Elephant bush), and Bougainvillea. It’ll be at least next year before I have some of these species for sale, but I’m sure enjoying the development process.
In the meantime, I went ahead and picked up a few Green island stock plants so I could offer a few for sale. These came out of Florida, where they’re grown en masse for landscape planting. The pots are by Chuck Iker.
The trunk base on this one is 1.25″ and it’s 8″ tall. It came with a few aerial roots, which hopefully will come through the transplanting.
This one has a 1″ trunk base and is 6″ tall.
I think is my favorite of the three. The trunk base 1.25″ and it’s 7″ tall. The pot really makes this composition.
I anticipate these guys will resume growing in a week or two, and will be able to ship out in about a month. If you’re interested, simply go to our Ficus Bonsai page.
by Zach Smith | Jun 4, 2017 | Collecting, Crape myrtle, Ficus, Flowering, Hawthorn, Potting, Pruning, Styling
I collected this Parsley hawthorn, Crataegus marshallii, in February. Though it was a decent piece of material, I knew there were quite a few years ahead of it in order for it to become a presentable bonsai. Then a thought occurred to me. That nice slender trunk emerging from near the base had a ton more character than the relatively straight main trunk. Wouldn’t that make a much better bonsai, and much sooner to boot?
Here’s the tree just recently. Allowing for all those shoots growing out, I’ve made just a few minor snips. Can you see where I cut back?
I cut back the three branches on the slender trunk, and then simply removed the thicker trunk altogether. Does this tree make a statement now? I think it does.
I’ve been making Edible figs, Ficus carica, practically since I got the parent tree from my mother. One I started about five years ago was a twin-trunk. I put it in the ground about three years ago. This year I decided to separate the smaller of the two trunks and pot into a bonsai pot. It’s a pretty nice starter bonsai, don’t you think? The trunk is 1″ in diameter and it’s 14″ tall. And it will fruit in a pot.
I’m very fond of Crape myrtle, Lagerstroemia indica, as bonsai. Not only are they horticulturally simple to grow, they bloom profusely in a bonsai pot. This is a white-blooming variety that I made from a cutting last year. I was able to wire a nice Crape myrtle shape into it and go right into this Chuck Iker round. It’s 14″ tall. I would expect it to resume growth in a couple of weeks, and it just might go ahead and bloom this summer. Time will tell.
I’ll be posting these trees for sale sometime this summer. Stay tuned.
by Zach Smith | Nov 5, 2016 | Care, Elms, Ficus, Water Elm
What does fall mean to you? Leaves turning, growth ended, prelude to winter? That’s all true, but for most of us (perhaps more of us in the South) some of our trees may still be pushing growth. This is particularly true if you’ve done any recent root work on them. Trees respond in a reliable fashion to having their roots disturbed at any time of year – they grow new roots, and if also pruned in the top grow new shoots. Here are a couple of examples from my own benches:
I wrote about this Water-elm, Planera aquatica, on September 29th. I had lifted it from my growing bed just to have some fun. It had a nice base and a perfect trunk form to produce a great broom-form bonsai. Do I normally lift trees in September? No, but my scientist background makes me want to experiment with trees so you never know what I may do. Up came this one, it got its root-pruning and went straight into this Chuck Iker pot.
I knew at the time that this tree would respond to having its roots and crown cut back hard by producing new growth. It took a few weeks, but lovely new buds began to form on the trunk and before you knew it I had some shoots that were several inches long. Today I wired a couple of them so I could start the shaping process. It sure doesn’t look like much right now, but I can assure you that next year I’ll be able to create the entire structure of this neat little bonsai.
But here’s the critical question: is there harm in doing things to your trees at this time of year that force it to produce growth usually reserved for spring? In my experience, the answer is no. Trees “want” to live, just as you and I do, so doing the hard pruning in summer or even early fall doesn’t really change that. Since deciduous trees store food in their cells over winter, and since sap stops flowing over winter, the only thing the tree needs to do after a late-season pruning is to produce some new roots and whatever top growth it can.
But what if a freeze comes along? I’ve seen this happen too. Because of where I live, some species will continue putting on growth well into November. We get our first freeze down here in December, typically. When it comes, any tender growth that can’t hold up to the cold simply gets burned back and that tends to finish off the growth for the season. Then the tree comes back out in spring. I’ve never seen a case where a tree, which didn’t have a fundamental health issue to start with, failed to come back out the next spring.
Here’s another tree that I pushed the envelope on, a Cedar elm, Ulmus crassifolia. It was lifted from my growing bed on October 15th. You can see in this photo that in only three weeks the tree has pushed a lot of new growth. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have a lot of new root growth as well. So the tree wanted to live and responded accordingly. It will continue to grow for the next few weeks or more. The new growth will harden off to an extent. Then winter will be upon us. And I have every reason to believe that the tree will not skip a beat in spring – in fact, lifting it this fall will give me a head-start on developing it for sale in 2017.
Here’s a closeup of some of the new growth, by the way. Reminiscent of spring, isn’t it?
Do you have any experience lifting trees in fall? I’d love to hear any feedback you might wish to share.
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 | Sep 23, 2016 | Care, Ficus, Potting, Styling
My great-grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Sicily in the late 1800s – the emigration grant from King Umberto of Italy is in the family archives, a very neat document. If there’s one thing about folks who immigrated from the Old World, especially those from around the Mediterranean, they loved their traditions and that included foods. Another thing they all seemed to have was a fig tree in the yard. Edible fig, Ficus carica, is native to the Middle East and Asia. It’s been cultivated since Biblical times. I never knew anyone in the family who didn’t have a fig tree in the yard. And so my mother had a few in her yard, which produced bountifully each year. She made preserves and fig cakes every year – I can still taste them.
My mother died in 2014 at the age of 91. A few years prior, she’d given me permission to dig up one of her smaller fig trees – and I jumped at the chance. I love family traditions, and this is one I couldn’t not continue. So I planted my fig tree dutifully and it grew large and fruitful. A few years ago I started some cuttings in order to make bonsai from them. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but never quite got around to.
Today I decided to pot a couple of these specimens. This first one has some nice branching already, and should make a typical broom-form style bonsai as it develops. The leaves, which are quite large in nature, reduce surprisingly well in a bonsai pot. This one already has a head-start on leaf-size reduction. The pot is a beautiful round by Chuck Iker, which I think complements the bright green leaf color nicely.
If you’d like some Old World charm in a bonsai, I’ve posted this specimen for sale at our new Ficus Bonsai sale page.
Oh, edible fig does fruit in a container, by the way.
This next specimen is not quite as far along as the one above, but it’ll catch up in the 2017 growing season. Both trees are of similar height, so you can see that this one has the large leaves normal to edible fig. But that will change next year.
This specimen is also in a nice Chuck Iker round. It’ll go up for sale in a couple of weeks.
