Pasture Privet Parade

by | Jun 21, 2020 | Care, Collecting, Flowering, Most Recent, Privet

pasture privet parade

the bonsai files

Sneak Peek

Cow pastures are the best place to collect Chinese privet. Cattle browse the soft foliage, and in time this produces specimens with great character ….

Pasture Privet Parade

 

Did you know that cow pastures are the best place to collect Chinese privet? Of course you did, I just said that in the Sneak Peek above. Here’s the thing. Privet is a fast growing broadleaf evergreen or, as some would prefer to say, a fast-growing noxious weed. They grow fast and straight with an untapering trunk or (quite) often many untapering trunks. If you were growing one in the ground, ideally you’d go out every day or three with your hedge trimmers and give it a whack. That’s a lot of work, and you’d have to do it for at least 10 years to get a good result. Unlikely to happen, right?

If you live in a part of the country that’s been invaded by privet, and you have access to cow pastures where they tend to grow near the fencelines, it’s a likely place to find nice specimens. The cows browse. The privets keep on coming back. The process continues. Over time, you end up with privet specimens that have good to great trunk taper and really nice character.

A week ago I harvested about a dozen pasture privets. Here are a handful that are already back-budding. This first one is a good example of a tapering specimen with terrific character that will make a fine small bonsai in short order.

A “Siamese twin trunk” specimen. The two trunks are fused and twisting, and will make an unusual but striking bonsai once developed.

This is one of the larger specimens I brought home. Trunk movement doesn’t happen by itself with privet, so it’s clear to me that this one has been worked on by cattle for the better part of 20 years.

We always want our trees to look older than they really are. This one is old to begin with, but even if it wasn’t the mottled coloring of the trunk would make it look old.

How about this twin-trunk? With a base 2″ across but only standing about 6″ to the higher chop, we’re looking at a very fine shohin bonsai to be.

How about this one? You can almost feel the tough times this privet has been through. It’s another shohin specimen, but will pack a lot of character in a small space once it’s developed.

And the last one for today. You can’t beat the trunk movement and taper, and there’s natural shari on the side and in back. I’m really looking forward to styling this one.

So let me know what you think of my pasture privet parade. If you haven’t grown Chinese privet as bonsai, you should give one a try.

A Little Evening Fun With A Crape Myrtle

by | Apr 23, 2020 | Care, Crape myrtle, Flowering, Potting, Pruning, Styling

I was walking through the benches this evening and this Crape myrtle caught my eye. I started it from a cutting several years ago, and haven’t done more than maybe rough-prune it once. Today it called out “make something out of me” as I passed by. So I took it to the work bench, figuring it would make a fun 10-minute project.

(I apologize for the low-light photo. Late in the evening, sun going down, you know.)

When you have a piece of material like this, you have to always think about proportions. This Crape is a small shrub in a nursery pot. Making a bonsai-to-be out of it requires adjusting its proportions. This is one of the challenges I see beginners face all the time.

A few minutes of pruning changes everything! With the height of this specimen dramatically reduced, we now have a workable trunk thickness to height and spread ratio. It actually looks like a much larger specimen. So when it gets to its bonsai pot, it’ll possess the necessary “treeness.”

This is what I had in mind when I first noticed this Crape on the bench this evening. It’s not a huge specimen, but it looks like a full-grown Crape myrtle. A little more shearing is needed, but that’s easy-peasy.

What style of bonsai is this? It’s the well-known “I’m not sure but I like it anyway” style. But seriously, my plan is to guide it toward the so-called “pierneef” style, the iconic African savannah tree form. By shearing each of the trunks properly, I should be able to get to this result in a year.

Now about the pot. It’s a Lary Howard piece I ordered last year, but unfortunately it was broken in transit by the ever-enthusiastic shipping service. I really loved the pot, so I kept the pieces just so I could learn Kintsugi. This is my first effort. If you look closely, you can see the gold leaf I used along the mended cracks on either side of the front of the pot. Not a bad result at all.

A Pocomoke Crape Myrtle Gets Styled

by | Mar 12, 2020 | Care, Crape myrtle, Flowering, Pruning, Styling, Wiring
I acquired this Pocomoke crape myrtle from a grower a few years ago. It was overgrown, so my first job was to chop it back so I could start planning a design. This is a photo of the tree from last August.
The buds are starting to swell, so it’s time to get busy making a bonsai out of this piece of raw material. If I don’t act fast, I’ll have a mountain of shoots and foliage to contend with in no time.
Almost all of the development work you’ll do on your bonsai consists of reducing the breadth, volume and profile of your tree. Also the maintenance work. They’re always wanting to grow out on you. So here I started by dramatically reducing that branch on the right side of the tree.

Here’s a good illustration of the principle I noted above. In removing most of the low left-hand branch, I’ve brought the profile of the tree even further in. Compare this photo with the first one. The proportions of your bonsai are vital to believability. It’s very common for our trees to “get away” from us, meaning they become too broad in their silhouettes. This tends to make them look younger and less mature, and less like a real tree in nature. In the worst cases, your tree will end up looking like a shrub in a pot! It’s the sort of thing that can sneak up on you over time, so it’s always good to ask yourself the question: Will this tree look better if I just reduce its profile and open it up? You may be surprised at how often the answer is yes.
Less is always more. There were too many shoots in the upper part of the tree. I’ve removed most of them along that upright knob that didn’t add anything worthwhile to the design.
Here I’ve wrapped things up for today by wiring and shaping the branches. When you compare this image with the first (or second) one above, you can see how much improved this Pocomoke is. All it needs now is the right pot. (I do need to go ahead and remove most of the root mass and get it in a bonsai pot. The design can be completed over time, and the restricted space of the bonsai pot will finish the miniaturization process. One more thing to note: that low left-hand branch needs to continue from where it’s been pruned in a downward and then horizontal sweep to the left. That will really add to the design by complementing the movement of the branch on the left-hand side that’s directly above it.) Let me know what you think of today’s work.

Bonsai Odds & Ends – Elm, Maple, Hawthorn

by | Mar 7, 2020 | Care, Elms, Flowering, Hawthorn, Maples, Potting, Styling, Water Elm, Wiring
Spring is gathering speed now, and most everything on my benches (beech and most oaks are usually last) is coming into leaf. Water-elms also lag, so I took the opportunity today to pot up a couple of small ones. This is another of the trees that came home last summer. Nice smaller specimen, 1″ trunk and destined to finish at 12″. As with small bonsai in general (and you should take this as a hard and fast rule), your tree will consist of fewer than a dozen primary branches in total. This includes the branches in the crown. So here you see I’ve made a design with only four branches (so far). There will be two to four max in the crown. And that’s it!
I think this Chuck Iker round is going to go perfectly with this tree. The root system was very good, considering the tree has only been on the bench for a few months’ worth of growth (last summer/fall).
And another small Water-elm, trunk base slightly larger than 1″ and again it’ll finish at 12″. Here I’ve got five primary branches along with the leader, so again a simple structure. (If you crowd your branching too much in a small tree, there’s no way to avoid the “shrub” effect. That’s not bonsai. Less is more.)
Another nice Chuck Iker round helps to make this tree.
Fun with Swamp maples continues. I collected a handful of nice ones this year, my goal being to see how well they hold up over the next few years. I’ve been encouraged by the last two I brought home. By keeping an intact root mass and avoiding completely cleaning the roots, it appears they don’t become susceptible to trunk rot. If this does prove to be the key to success, then you’ll see more specimens over the next few years. They really do have some nice characteristics, so I’m excited. Today I wired a single branch on this very tall specimen (18″ trunk with a 1.5″ base; I had one I blogged about the past couple of years that went on to a client; I’m trying to duplicate that design). Why wire one branch? It should help redirect energy elsewhere, especially to the many trunk buds you can’t yet see. I’ll need this branch in my design, and I don’t want it getting too thick too fast. I’ll also be pruning it later in the season, to activate the buds that appear at the nodes on the branch.
Finally, this Parsley hawthorn came out of my ground growing area earlier in the year. It’s exploding with growth, as you can see. That includes some shoots on the recumbent trunk that will make upright trunks to go along with the four I currently have. So I’ll let them grow without restraint for some time, possibly even all season. I do want variety in the trunk thicknesses, but I can control that as this tree develops. You’ve probably noticed that one of the two largest trunks leans a bit too much, making the design less harmonious than it can be. I’ll notch this trunk a little later in spring, bringing it more upright.

Potting And Repotting – Water-Elm, Boxelder, Lantana

by | Feb 23, 2020 | Care, Elms, Flowering, Maples, Potting, Water Elm
I potted up this Water-elm last year. It’s a specimen from the 2018 collecting season, and since Water-elms develop so quickly I was able to move it along less than a year after it was first lifted. It’s a nice composition, but there’s one problem with it – the pot is just a bit too small. It’s starting to come into leaf, so today was the perfect time to repot into a more suitable container.

This was a pretty quick operation. The original pot and this one are both by Lary Howard; each is unique, but this one suits the tree better. I did have to do some light root-pruning to ensure the perfect fit, but the tree won’t care.

I was also able to lift the tree slightly in the pot, which shows the surface rootage better. Ramification is going to be the first order of business during this growing season. With Water-elms, I’ve found that grow and clip is the technique of choice once the original design is made by means of wiring and shaping. Occasionally you’ll need to do some wiring on a mature specimen, but it’s generally minimal.

This tree is available at our Water-Elm Bonsai page, if you’d like to take over the refinement work.
Sometime there’s more to the story. I started playing around with this Boxelder last year. I got a nice branch set in place, and carved down the trunk chop, and the tree went into dormancy like clockwork. Now the first signs of growth are on it, and since I really like the way it’s shaping up and since my expectations for it are firmly in check (it being a Boxelder and all), I thought I’d like to pot it up. Why not? The only problem was, I didn’t have a pot suited to it. Except … that pot the Water-elm was in looked like fitting this tree pretty well.
The tree had plenty of roots when I lifted it, so I’m confident it’s going to continue leafing out and not look back. I think the pot works very well with it. So I’ll give the tree some food and ignore it for awhile. Stay tuned for an update later in spring (assuming all goes well).
I got this Lantana from another collector last fall. It’s been in this homemade concrete training pot since I got it, but now it’s pushing new growth and today was the day it needed to go into a nice bonsai pot.
I think this Chuck Iker round just makes the tree. What do you think?

Some Things That Are Waking Up

by | Feb 1, 2020 | Bald Cypress, Blueberry, Care, Flowering, Hawthorn, Mulberry
Each winter there are certain specimens of certain species that decide to wake early from dormancy. It just takes a little warmth and sunshine, and they start popping buds. We just finished up Bald cypress collecting season last week. This one was collected two weeks ago and it, along with some others we harvested, is already pushing buds. It looks like we’re heading into a slight warming trend over the next couple of weeks, so this tree should have obvious foliage on it by the end of February.

Here’s a Red mulberry, Morus rubra, that I’ve had on the bench for over a year. It was in an oversized pot, and had thrown branches that were six feet in length. Starting this year it gets to be a shohin bonsai. Last week I did a number of it, top and bottom, and it fit nicely with all that coaxing into this Chuck Iker round. I think it’s going to make a great composition. You probably can’t see in this photo, but it’s got lots of green buds that are swelling and should be open in a week. Styling it is going to be a lot of fun.
This Parsley hawthorn was lifted from our field growing area on December 14th of last year. Parsley haw is one of the first species to leaf out each year, and this tendency is enhanced if you do root work on them. I cut back all of the roots hard on this specimen, and it’s doing just what I expected. Judging by the buds I see, I’ll be able to create a nice branch structure in about six weeks.
This Huckleberry was also lifted on December 14th. It’s another species that comes out very early, whether you do root work on them or not. I have some on the bench in bloom, and most are just starting to leaf out. I don’t know about you, but I’m really getting excited about the 2020 growing season. I still have some collecting to do, which will probably extend into early March, but it looks like an early spring is headed our way.