Hornbeam | Bonsai South

Do You Know The Best Thing About American Hornbeam For Bonsai?

by Zach Smith | May 27, 2018 | Care, Collecting, Hornbeam, Pruning, Styling, Wiring

American hornbeam, Carpinus caroliniana, is one of my best deciduous species for bonsai. It has many stellar characteristics as a bonsai subject, including relatively small leaves that reduce in size readily, smooth greenish-gray bark, and the easily recognized “muscling” of the trunk in older specimens.

I collected this hornbeam earlier this year. What struck me about it was the really nice (and old-looking) bark. Isn’t the character just great? So with this specimen I’ve already achieved one of the goals of bonsai, namely, an old-looking tree. Starting from that point, it’s pretty hard to go wrong.

The goal for today was to establish the initial design of this tree. Notice that there’s a shoot coming up from the base. I left and encouraged this shoot because I’m aiming for a twin-trunk specimen. In the video below, you can see the step by step process.

So in this video I mention what I think may be the best thing about American hornbeam as bonsai – the really unusual characteristic of continuous growth. I’m hard-pressed to think of another species grown as bonsai that literally grows all year long, constantly, rather than in flushes. What this does for you as the artist is it provides the opportunity for more rapid development. You’ll most likely do a couple of rounds of wiring each growing season, and with the normal trimming that goes with it you can expect the tree to begin producing ramification in year one. This is really hard to beat!

Hornbeam Harvest Part 2

by Zach Smith | Feb 3, 2018 | Care, Collecting, Hornbeam

I made a collecting trip with a new bonsai friend today, and we got some really nice American hornbeams (Carpinus caroliniana). Among the nicknames for the species is “Musclewood.” This is because as it matures the trunk of a hornbeam will produce sinewy-looking ridges that run vertically along and sometime around the trunk.

Here’s the biggest specimen I got today. The trunk base is 4.5″ at soil level, and it’s 18″ to the chop on the main trunk. As you can see, it’s a twin-trunk with the two trunks really snugged together. I have a vision for it, so once it comes out I’ll get to work and see if my idea is going to work.

Aren’t the roots terrific? The muscling on this specimen is subtle but there. You can even see it on the small branch stub I left.

This is the best specimen I got today. The trunk base is 4″, and it’s 19″ to the chop. There was a secondary trunk growing in back, and I went ahead and cut it off. The trunk will need carving there, but that will only enhance the character.

The muscling is much more prominent on this one. And the radial roots are awesome.

I love the movement, muscling and character of this specimen. It’s smaller than the other two, with a trunk base of 2″, but the roots are still great and if you’re looking for a smaller American hornbeam that has great trunk character, you’d be hard-pressed to do better.

This one is chopped at 16″. It might could stand to be chopped another 4″ or so. That’s something I can decide later.

These trees should be budding in about eight weeks.

Let me know what you think.

Hornbeam And Huckleberry Trunks

by Zach Smith | Jan 28, 2018 | Blueberry, Care, Collecting, Hornbeam

I posted a blog a couple of weeks ago about new American hornbeam and Huckleberry specimens I’d collected. That post disappeared when we changed hosting services. I don’t feel like trying to recreate that blog, so here’s a replacement to show you a few nice trees that will hopefully survive lifting and come available in about two months.

Here’s a nice smaller hornbeam specimen (1.5″ base on the main trunk). It’s actually a triple-trunk. The main trunk has really nice taper and movement. The two smaller trunks are proportionately smaller, which is just what you want, so I think this could make a terrific multi-trunk bonsai in just a few years.

Continuing the theme of multi-trunk bonsai-to-be, this hornbeam is a very elegant twin-trunk. Think of them as “close companions.” Most twin-trunks don’t feature the trunks quite so close together. I’m looking forward to seeing how this one looks once it’s designed. With a base of 1.75″, it’s a good size also.

This hornbeam also has a 1.75″ trunk, and really great trunk character. I chopped the trunk to a smaller branch that was growing straight up. It’s not quite a formal upright, but it’s definitely an upright specimen and the height should be emphasized when it’s designed.

This specimen is smaller than the one above, 1.25″ at the base, but really nice character and I was able to chop to a smaller trunk (which I left too long, but you can always chop more). That makes for really good taper. It’s currently 9″ from soil to apex, so when it gets chopped and then grown into a bonsai the finished height could well be less than 12″.

I’m really fond of shohin bonsai. How about you?

Fascinating Facts About 10 Bonsai Species

by Zach Smith | Jan 2, 2018 | American Elm, Bald Cypress, Crape myrtle, Dogwood, Elms, Hornbeam, Vines

There’s not much growing at this time of year, so I got to pondering some fascinating facts about 10 of the species I grow as bonsai. Here they are, in no particular order.

Bald Cypress - Taxodium Distichum

This species produces more trunk buds when collected as bare stumps than just about any other species. This makes branch selection almost problematic (too many choices!).

Holly - Ilex Species

This species have male and female flowers on different plants. The bright red fall berries occur only on the female plants. The leaves and stems of common Yaupon, Ilex vomitoria, were brewed into a tea by Native American men for use in purification and unity rituals. These rituals included vomiting, hence the scientific name given by Europeans when they originally classified the species. Only the Yaupon tea does not actually cause vomiting. Oops.

Crape Myrtle - Lagerstroemia Indica

With this species, new shoots are square when they first emerge. As they extend and thicken, they round off.

Flowering Dogwood - Cornus Florida

The beautiful white flowers are not flowers at all (as in flower petals), they’re white flower bracts. The actual flowers are yellow and inconspicuous, and reside in the center of the bracts.

Elms - Ulmus Species

Tricky to prune larger roots, as the bark will separate easily. Sawing works better, however, don’t saw straight through from one side or the bark will likely peel on the other side of the cut. (Even with experience you will likely make a mistake here and there when preparing collected elms.)

American elm – champion in leaf-size reduction, from 5” long in the wild to under ½” in a bonsai pot. This is the first image to your left. Six weeks later (image to your immediate left), this American elm already has much smaller leaves. Easy stuff!

Willow Leaf Ficus - Ficus Salicaria

This is perhaps the most popular fig species grown as bonsai, it is unknown in the wild (meaning you can’t go look at mature specimens in their natural habitat). The original plant was discovered in a Florida nursery by Joe Samuels, who eventually acquired and began propagating it. If you have one, it came from this single specimen.

American Hornbeam - Carpinus Caroliniana

This species grows continuously throughout the growing season, never pausing as most species do. There’s always fresh new growth. This trait is almost unique among species grown as bonsai.

Figs - Ficus Species

Figs are technically among the flowering plants (angiosperms), so where are the flowers? Actually, the flowers are inside the fruit and never “bloom” as we understand the term. Typically a specialized wasp enters the tiny opening at the end of the fruit to pollinate it.

Wisteria - Wisteria Floribunda

This species is quite the bean! I know we don’t tend to think of the lovely Wisteria in such terms, but as a member of the legume family Wisteria is related to all of the beans and peas. Once the stunning flowers have done their thing each year, a pod slowly but surely develops until it’s quite obvious by fall.

Did You Enjoy?

This was a fun topic for me. I sure hope you enjoyed the read. Drop me a comment below; I really enjoy hearing from people who love bonsai as much as I love it!

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It’s Showtime! How To Prepare Your Tree

by Zach Smith | Nov 4, 2017 | Care, Hornbeam, Wiring

My local bonsai club is having its fall show this coming weekend. I’ve been pondering which of my trees I’d like to show, and today this one caught my eye.

This, you might say, is one heck of a hornbeam. The American hornbeam, Carpinus caroliniana, is one of the best deciduous species for bonsai, especially if you’re a beginner.

This one has a trunk base of 5.5″ above the root crown, and is 28″ tall from the soil surface.

I chopped the trunk when I first collected it back in 2011, and I’ve been working on it since. I’ve reached the point where the only real macro development step left to do is flesh out the very apex of the tree. I’ve grown and chopped the apex several times now, in order to build taper. It’s come out pretty well, I think.

Okay, so what do you need to do to prepare a tree to show?

There will be some slight differences from tree to tree, but this list is fairly comprehensive:

Trim out all crossing branches, downward pointing branches, and branches that dart back into the tree or into the branch – the ugly ones that don’t belong, in other words
Remove upward pointing branches that cannot be used in the tree’s design; it’s a little hard to explain the difference in this blog post, but with experience you’ll know which is which
Trim to the tree’s correct silhouette
Remove ugly leaves
Trim pruning nubs – carve and smooth if need be

Clean the trunk
Clean the pot; oil unglazed pots (baby oil mixed with pumice works well)
Do any remedial or cleanup carving the tree needs
Treat carved wood, meaning jins, sharis and uros, with lime sulfur at least a week in advance of the show (to allow time for normal weathering)
Top dress the soil surface; pluck any weeds that have popped up
Place moss on the soil surface if you like (this is optional)

I have to do all of these things to this tree, so let’s get started.

I’ve done the bulk of the trimming and nub pruning in this photo. It looks a good bit “cleaner” now, and the silhouette is restored.

I took my Dremel® to the big uro at the front. It needed more carving; it’s much more flush with the trunk now, which helps it look more natural.

In order to top-dress the soil surface, I had to actually shear away a layer of the surface soil (along with a lot of roots). Will this harm the tree? No, I took at most 5% of the root mass. American hornbeam roots like crazy, so I know the pot is chock full of fibrous roots.

In this photo I’ve also cleaned the trunk. I used a 50:50 mixture of distilled white vinegar in water, sprayed on with a small spray bottle, and an ordinary toothbrush. This works remarkably well.

I needed to do a little remedial carving of the trunk chop. The wood was mostly quite durable. I removed the small amount of punky wood, then brushed on some lime sulfur. Once it has weathered, I’ll treat this area with wood hardener.

I took the opportunity to do a 360° portrait of this tree while I was show-prepping. Here’s the right side.

And the back.

And the left side.

Back to the front, following the top-dressing. I may put some moss on the soil before showing it; haven’t decided yet.

A question often asked is should a tree with wire on it be showed? The purists say no. I say a tree that’s fully wired shouldn’t be showed, but if there’s minimal wire present I don’t feel bad about doing it. To each his own, I suppose.

Let me know what you think.

Bad Roots Or No Roots? How To Make Your Own

by Zach Smith | Jul 4, 2017 | Care, Hornbeam

Happy Fourth of July! There’s nothing like grilled meat, potato salad, watermelon, and the rest of the fixins followed by some fireworks. Except for bonsai, of course. Today I want to tackle what makes a lot of bonsai folks cringe, but which when you master it will pay awesome dividends. By that I mean making roots where there are none and you need some.

When you’ve been in bonsai long enough you’re going to encounter one of the banes of the bonsai artist, namely, bad or no roots. And by this I mean those nice surface roots, what is known as the nebari. Ideally your bonsai, being a tree after all, is supported by a stable and attractive set of roots. There should be at least three, the minimum to produce an impression of stability. But what happens if you have an otherwise really nice tree but the surface rootage is bad or AWOL?

Here’s a classic example of this phenomenon, an American hornbeam, Carpinus caroliniana.

What I liked about this tree when I collected it is the rough bark, which is not normal for American hornbeam. With good taper and an unusual growth habit, I thought and still do that this tree has the makings of a great bonsai.

The problem with this tree is that it has an unstable nebari.

There are flaring roots on the sides and in back of the tree, but across the front it’s just totally flat. While this can be overlooked or covered with extra soil, that’s really not the solution to the problem. The solution to the problem is to put roots where there are none. That’s right, it’s time to partially layer this tree (*shudder*).

Now, you may be like some when faced with this chore and just avoid it.

Truth be told, many years ago when I was new at bonsai I avoided it like the plague. I mean, they make it look so easy in the books and articles. Well, sometimes in order to get better at something we just have to tackle those chores that seem more trouble than they’re worth, rather than avoid the issue altogether.

I hope to make it seem a little less daunting to you with this step by step lesson.

So, the first step in the process is to remove the soil from the area to be layered. You can see the flat area I mentioned above. The trunk just goes straight down into the soil, which frankly is ugly. What we need is one or two roots that emerge from this area, ideally not coming straight toward the observer.

Now that I have the area where I need roots exposed, I’ve peeled away a section of bark all the way down past the cambium layer and just into the sapwood (or xylem). It’s important to make this area wide enough so that when the growing callus begins to form it won’t be able to heal over before roots emerge. This is true, by the way, whether you’re doing this type of operation or air-layering to make a new plant.

Notice one more thing in this photo …

The top of my cut is made just under the point where the flaring roots to either side begin to flare away from the straight part of the trunk, so they will look like they match up with the others. The new roots are going to emerge from the top edge of this cut. Remember how a tree works. Roots are fed by nutrients that are transported down the inner bark (or phloem) from the leaves. Roots are not made by an upward flow of nutrients, so nothing is going to happen at the lower edge of this cut.

Now get enough rooting powder to cover the area where you want the roots to be. You can put this in a small dish, or if you’re really lazy like I am you can just put it in the palm of your hand.

Mix a little water with it to make a paste. And for God’s sake, don’t be as messy doing it as I was.

Next, steal a small artist’s brush from your child or grandchild and “paint” on the rooting powder paste under the top edge of the cut, where you want to stimulate root growth. (You can return the artist’s brush later, when they’re not looking.)

Thoroughly wet some long-fiber sphagnum moss and pack it up against the whole area you skinned.

Wrap the trunk of the tree with plastic film – Saran® wrap works well. You can buy some fruit at the grocery store and put it in one of those handy bags, then when you get home toss out the fruit so you have a bag to work with (just kidding; fruit is awesome). No matter what you use, make sure it’s placed tightly against the trunk.

Next tie above the layered area with some twine, to help make sure it remains moist. Water can flow down the trunk during watering to help maintain the moisture level.

After trimming off the excess twine, add some soil over the edges of the plastic wrap to finish the job. Now it’s time to set the tree aside and ignore it for a number of weeks.

About eight weeks, to be precise. You can usually figure on about this timeframe when layering a tree. Carefully unwrap the plastic, at which time you will typically see new white roots emerging from the sphagnum moss. Just like here!

Another angle and a little closer. Don’t remove the sphagnum moss at this time. Keep it in place, which will help the new roots stay moist. It can be removed at the next repotting.

The final step is to add soil to cover the new roots fairly deep with bonsai soil, which will help keep them moist. You can also add some surface moss to the soil over the spot where the new roots are.

I hope this encourages you to try your hand at layering. It can make such a big difference for your bonsai.

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