by Zach Smith | Nov 10, 2018 | Care, Maples, Styling, Wiring
The first thing you’ll notice is that the smaller trunk is gone. As it turns out, that trunk was a separate tree altogether. Because I had left the specimen in its original soil, only filling in with coarse bonsai soil when I initially potted it, I did not know what was going on beneath the surface. I was to learn a lot more when I decided to pot the tree in this bonsai pot. To do so I had to remove a good bit of root at the base of the two trees. In doing so, I found out the smaller trunk was a separate tree, and when I removed enough of its tap root to fit it in the bonsai pot, I ended up taking off all the supporting fibrous roots. Though I was hopeful it would produce new feeders, such was not to be.
The main tree did very well, as you can see. It’s now sporting some South Louisiana fall color, which is nothing to write home about. On those species that do give us some, it’s generally two or three days of yellow or red, then everything drops off for the ensuing three months of nasty grayness we call winter.
In the initial post on this tree, I noted that it very much wanted to be a “tall tree” bonsai, meaning my styling goal had to be based on keeping the branch structure very close in to the trunk. If you compare this photo to the previous one, you can see I’ve pruned everything back in order to accomplish this goal. This is a tall, slender specimen; yet it looks like a mature tree and is believable.
The only significant design issue apparent in the previous photo is the lack of branching on the right-hand side of the tree. In the first post on this specimen, I intentionally removed any branching on the right so as to prevent shading out of the smaller tree. With this tree now gone, I need to encourage foliage in a more balanced structure. I was able to wire a back branch and bring it over to visually satisfy this requirement. It’s a good temporary fix.
Here’s a more permanent fix. I have a small bud on the right side of the trunk, in just the right spot. Next year, when this bud pushes, I’ll let it run and make a branch out of it. That will continue the development of this Swamp maple as a bonsai.
The big question, of course, is what happens in 2019? Is the end near for this specimen? Maintaining Swamp maples collected from the wild has proven to be an insurmountable challenge for me. By year three, they start rotting from the top down and I have never figured out how to keep that from happening. This time I did two things different: one, I kept the tree mostly in its native soil, hoping that perhaps would be the key to the tree’s defense against viral attack; and two, I avoided any wiring and shaping work in year one. Why would that cause the tree to decline? I’m not sure, except that perhaps the additional stress would be too much for the tree to cope with as it recovered from collecting. Anything’s worth a try, right?
Let me know what you think of this specimen. Leave me a comment below.
by Zach Smith | Apr 8, 2018 | Care, Maples, Styling, Wiring
I seldom write about Swamp maple,
Acer rubrum ‘Drummondii,’ not because you can’t make nice bonsai with them but because I have had no success collecting larger specimens and maintaining them past a few years. In about year three they start rotting from the chop point down the trunk, and that’s when the fight begins to keep them alive and make something of them. I collected the one below in 2017, as it had a nice appearance and I figured the worst that could happen was it would cost me a little soil, water and fertilizer. If it lives and thrives through next year I’ll post an update and comment on what I did differently; if not, I won’t speak of it again as I already know how to kill collected Swamp maples. With that said, I went ahead and tackled the initial styling and potting of this specimen, because regardless of the outcome it does make for a good design lesson.
There are all sorts of styles of bonsai within the recognized standard forms: formal upright, informal upright, slanting, semi-cascade, cascade, clump, forest, sumo, etc. Sizes from shohin all the way to back-breaker. The important thing to bear in mind is that as you approach the styling of a tree, don’t think so much about what form you want it to take as you do about what form the tree suggests it ought to be. After long experience, as often as not upon collecting a tree you already know the form it’s going to take. I think this Swamp maple is a great example of this principle. The official style it’ll be is informal upright. In the end it won’t look anything like the classic informal upright (moyogi) bonsai with the pronounced curves we expect with that style. Rather, it will look like what it is meant to look like given the characteristics of the individual specimen. And spotting this in your trees is the thing that comes with experience.
Okay, let’s dive in. Here’s the tree with all its “springy” lush growth. You can see the apical dominance on display.
This must be brought under control, in order to achieve our ultimate design goal.
Ordinarily we start working trees from the bottom; in this case I want to take care of the leader first.
But before getting into technique, it’s vital to step back and take stock of the specimen itself and what it’s trying to say to us.
The trunk is quite straight, but it hardly possesses the precise straightness of a formal upright.
It’s quite tall relative to the basal trunk diameter – no 1:6 ratio here! So it seems more like a forest tree, especially with that small second trunk. And because of this impression on the viewer, certain design principles must be applied in order to create the necessary proportions to pull it off.
But first, let’s take care of the main leader and branch structure.
If you work much with maples, they possess one characteristic that’s both good and bad: opposite buds/leaves/branches.
In this photo you can see this characteristic very clearly.
We know that in bonsai opposite branches, which are called bar branches, are a no-no.
They look unnatural naturally, so you either have to remove one of them or find a way to disguise them.
In this case, I’m going to use the opposing branches in the apex in such a way that the problem goes away.
The next most obvious issue with this design is the strong branch down the trunk. Now, this branch is not out of proportion to the trunk, and though the first internode is pretty far out along the branch this isn’t the reason the branch has to go.
If you’ll look at the first photo above you can see why.
This branch is positioned right over the smaller of the two trunks. While the branch might grow this way in nature, it would also shade out the smaller trunk and likely starve it for light causing it to die. If I keep it, then, I’m creating an unnatural design that won’t work so well visually.
Branch removed, and stub above it cut down.
Here’s the new leader I mentioned above, wired and positioned. Its opposing branch is cut back hard, and when it produces a new shoot I’m going to wire it for a crown branch. This is a common way to take advantage of a bar branch situation.
In this photo you can see the completed rough design. There are two very important takeaways in what I’ve done here.
First is what you can call the minimalist approach, meaning rather sparse branching.
Why do this? As noted above, both of these trunks are quite tall relative to their basal thicknesses.
In such cases employing many branches tends to make the tree look much younger than I want it to. Sparser branching implies age and struggle; age and struggle mean character. Second, the branch spread is going to be kept very narrow. If I fail to do this, once again the tree is just going to look youthful and that’s not my goal.
Here’s the finished composition.
I used one of the outstanding pots I got from my client Lary Howard. The size of the pot has been selected to emphasize the height of these trees. And the colors are straight from the swamp!
Let me know what you think of this Swamp maple.
Do the design principles I discussed make sense to you? Why don’t you let me know how you are going to use these design principles yourself…
Remember to use the new Insider’s Club Form to post your questions and comments. This helps everybody learn and help and this is where I am now posting responses to your inquires and comments. (You’ll find the forum by scrolling up; it’s on your right.)
Note: Remember to use the new Insider’s Club Form to post your questions and comments. This helps everybody learn and help and this is where I am now posting responses to your inquires and comments.
by Zach Smith | Oct 8, 2017 | Bald Cypress, Care, Collecting, Maples
I have a couple of specimens I acquired this year, one that I collected and the other that I bought from a fellow grower. The first is a Swamp maple, Acer rubrum “Drumondii.” Now, I have not yet in my bonsai career been able to crack the code when it comes to collecting this species. The larger specimens (what I’m after) seem to do fine the first year or two following collection, but by year three they start rotting from the chop point. Nothing I’ve ever tried has kept this from happening. This year I tried yet another approach: leaving the specimen in as much of its native soil as possible, keeping as much of the trunk as possible, and doing absolutely no work whatsoever to it. Here’s this tree at the end of year one:
I thought this was an interesting “two-fer,” two trees growing close to one another that seem to make a nice pair. The small one didn’t get chopped at all, while I did shorten to large one. Other than that, no wiring or otherwise messing with it. And it sits in native soil. Next year I’ll chop the smaller trunk back to about a third its size, putting it in nice scale with the larger one. I expect to do some wiring and training. Then in 2019 it’ll be time to transition from the native soil to bonsai soil. I should know by then if the rot is going to attack this specimen.
In the meantime, here’s what I see in the future for this one.
Of course, the tree has to do its part and live. I’ll post more on it if that comes to pass.
Here’s the second “two-fer” I’m looking forward to working on next year, a Bald cypress I acquired for another grower. These two trees are also well matched. The smaller one needs to be closer to the large one, plus the planting angle needs adjustment. But I can go straight to a bonsai pot with them next year and do all of the training there. So in spring, I begin work on the plan below.
This is what I’m seeing for these two trees. I think it’s a pretty good plan.
Let me know what you think.
by Zach Smith | Jan 1, 2017 | Bald Cypress, Care, Collecting, Elms, Hawthorn, Hornbeam, Maples, Oaks, Sweetgum
Happy New Year to all of you!
And many thanks to all of you who helped Bonsai South grow in 2016. We’ve been doing better each and every year since I relaunched the business in 2010, and I’m happy to report that 2017 looks like it will be another record-setting year.
What can you expect this coming year and into the future? The mainstay of our business is obviously larger collected specimens of various species – Bald cypress, Hawthorns, Oaks, American hornbeam, Sweetgum, Elms, and so on. We’ve also done well with field-grown specimens of not only these but also non-native species such as Chinese elm. Our plans for 2017 include adding more species along with greatly expanding our growing field; obviously we will also continue the tradition of collecting the best material we can find. We expect to roughly double 2017 production, with plans for much more in subsequent years.
I get a lot of inquiries about new material, as you can imagine. The Winter 2017 collecting season begins now, so in the coming weeks I’ll be posting photos of new collects. When spring gets here there will be lots of new material for sale.
As always, we welcome any specific requests for trees you may have. Just send me a note via our Contact page.
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 | Apr 9, 2016 | Care, Maples, Potting, Pruning, Soil
About four years ago I acquired this trident maple, Acer buergerianum, from a bonsai friend. He had been growing it in his field bed for several years prior and wanted to get rid of it. I gladly agreed to saw it out of the ground – which, way too much time later proved just about impossible. We lashed it to the back of his Jeep and finished the job that way.
Well, this was the last tree I potted up that day and I was pretty tired. So it went into a really big tub, after which it pretty much sat untouched until today. Just food and water.
It took about an hour, a lot of water and a lot of muscle to get the tree to this point. Isn’t the root base amazing? I had buried it, as I always do, when it was first collected in order to protect it from drying out. This technique works on everything I collect; rarely will I lose a large lateral root on a tree. This trident was no different.
Here’s a shot from the back. You can see where the trunk was chopped several years ago after the tree had been allowed to grow unchecked to thicken the base. The callus is rolling over. Tridents heal well, so in time this wound should close mostly or completely.
Isn’t that a great mat of fibrous roots! You should see the amount I cut away.
It’s a little hard to see from this angle, but there are large buttressing roots all the way around this specimen. Once this tree finds its way into a bonsai pot, the nebari is going to be stunning.
Here’s the tree in its smaller tub. I cut away a lot of stiff larger branches, which could not be bent. When the tree re-buds, I’ll be able to wire the tender new shoots and get a good branch set started. This should happen over the next several weeks.
This tree is available at our Miscellaneous Bonsai sales page, for anyone who’s wanted to tackle a really big trident maple. I believe it can ship in late May or early June.
