Coming Attractions – American Elm And Live Oak

by | Apr 17, 2021 | American Elm, Care, Elms, Most Recent, Oaks, Potting, Styling

coming attractions – american elm and live oak

the bonsai files

Sneak Peek

It’s very uncommon to see American elm and Live oak bonsai. There are reasons for the dearth of specimens. Here’s one of each I’ve started on the bonsai journey.

Formal Upright Bald Cypress – Development 101

It’s relatively easy to find American elm seedlings to harvest and grow on for bonsai. It’s not at all easy to find larger specimens in the wild to collect – at least that’s been my experience. While American elm is a very fine bonsai subject, you don’t see many of them. I frankly don’t know why this is, considering their qualities.

Here’s a specimen I’ve been working on for a few years now, that I pulled up as a seedling and potted. It’s been trunk-chopped a couple of times to build movement and taper, and naturally it’s grown out vigorously each time. I like the way this one’s looking, so why not prune, style and pot it?

These are easy to “take in” when it’s time to shorten the ranging branches that grow way out. Some quick snipping is all it takes.

 

A little wiring helps get those branches in the right positions.

I like the way this Lary Howard pot goes with the tree. Nice pot design, and since American elm will usually give a bright yellow fall color that will be something to look forward to considering the pot color.

 

Live oak bonsai are as rare as hen’s teeth. I’m not sure if this is because they are very hard to lift from the wild successfully (when you can find them), or it takes some years to get a good design going. Regardless, who could resist the species as bonsai?

As near as I can tell, the secret to successfully lifting Live oaks from the ground – and I’m working strictly from material I’ve been growing for 10 years from acorns – is to take them out of the ground about 10 to 14 days before they change leaves in spring. That means a March 1st collecting date for me. While I’ve had very poor luck lifting the species in late winter or summer, every specimen I’ve lifted on March 1st has lived. Here’s one of two I harvested this year. It’s going to make a classic Live oak style Live oak bonsai; here are the first steps.

If you study Live oaks in nature, the older ones tend to look a lot like octopuses in their branching. The trunks are short and stout, and divide off into two, three, four, or more leaders. Those leaders then have branches that grow off of them and snake outward, often dropping down to the ground (and I mean on the ground). They make quite a show.

You can see how I intend to make this tree into a classic Live oak. I have main leaders that point upward, and I have the beginnings of branches that emerge from those upright leaders but droop over. While I intend to keep the ends of those dropping branches pointed upward – toward the sun, for stronger growth – in time I plan to bring the outermost points as close to the soil surface as I can.

 

Here’s a final shot of this one for today, showing the nice barky base and good flaring roots. I’ll let the tree grow out to get strong. By summer it’s going to be full of new growth. The chop point will stay as-is for this season, but next year I’ll get in there and carve it down so the rolling callus will close off the wound as the leaders thicken.

Let me know what you think. Any Live oaks on your bench?

Bonsai Odds & Ends – Rip, Swamp Maple, Ginkgo, Surprise

by | Apr 10, 2021 | Care, Flowering, Most Recent, Oaks, Willow, ZPC

bonsai odds & ends – rip, swamp maple, ginkgo, surprise

the bonsai files

Sneak Peek

Spring is in full force, and there’s lots going on around here. Today it’s worth checking in on ‘Rip van Winkle’ the Willow oak, the Swamp maple and Ginkgo I potted late, and a surprise.

Bonsai Odds & Ends – Rip, Swamp Maple, Ginkgo, Surprise

This was the before photo in my last blog – a little Swamp maple in too small of a pot that needed more room. Not looking too bonsai-y.

It’s been two weeks, and this little guy has obviously survived the late repotting. There’s a lot of work to do on this tree, but with more growing room it’ll be easier to do that work and have the tree respond well.

 

Ginkgo potted late.

Bag on ….

Bag off ….

Another success story – surviving the late potting.

 

I almost titled this blog “They don’t call me Rip van Winkle for nuthin’.” I can almost always count on this Willow oak to come out last – even after all of the Water-elms have broken bud. Sure as shootin’, this guy is finally waking up. In about a week it’ll be full of new shoots that I’ll be starting to pinch back.

Now for something of a surprise. Last year, in the course of my day job, I was walking a field with a firm doing a Phase I Environmental Assessment, and in a stand of trees noticed some pale orange fruits lying all over the ground. I immediately knew they were native persimmons (Diospyros virginiana). I have never seen one in the wild, though they certainly are around, and that’s most likely because I don’t collect trees in the areas where they grow at the time they’re dropping fruit. I gathered as many of the fruits as I could carry, then last fall I planted them in a pot to let them cold-stratify over the winter. I’ve ended up with a couple of dozen sprouts. Now we see how well they grow, and ultimately what I can do with them. A pleasant surprise ….

 

An American Beech With Potential

by | Feb 3, 2021 | Beech, Care, Most Recent, Pruning, Styling, Wiring

an american beech with potential

the bonsai files

Sneak Peek

I seldom collect American beech, despite their natural beauty. They’re just way sloooow to train. But sometimes you find one with potential.

An American Beech with Potential

I rarely collect American beech, Fagus grandifolia. Despite their natural beauty, as bonsai subjects they seem to take forever to train. Why? Because you can only reliably get one flush of growth per growing season. With most other species there are two or more, and you can get additional growth or regrowth by hard-pruning. Not so with American beech. If you decide to hard-prune in, say, June, at best you’ll probably get some weak regrowth. Not very rewarding and it doesn’t get you much closer to a design goal.

Now, this is a specimen I spotted two years ago while hunting for hornbeams with a bonsai friend. In winter they’re easy to spot – the clinging golden leaves are a dead giveaway (though you may get fooled if there are hophornbeams around). In the case of this one, there was also a set of branches and considering how long it takes to grow your own set, I had to jump on this possibility. So home it came, looking like this.

Fast-forward ten months, and this is the season’s growth. It’s actually not bad, considering. But if I hadn’t had something to start with, I most definitely would not have had this result in this timeframe.

Fast-forward some more, to today. After two growing seasons, you can see a branch structure taking shape. From the beginning I saw a classic stately beech shape, with horizontal branches and the lovely smooth gray bark. There’s no doubt in my mind that this tree can make a fine bonsai.

Today’s work will be selective pruning, wiring and shaping.

Beech trees hold their leaves through winter because the species is one that does not form an abscission layer when its leaves turn in the fall. But once spring is in the offing, the leaves do release on their own or can be gently pulled off without damaging or pulling off the dormant (and quite prominent) buds. This is essential for ease of wiring.

I’m working my way up the tree, wiring the branches and positioning them. They naturally grow where they want, and while enough time would resolve any odd branch placement issues in the wild, bonsai training demands that we step in and shorten the timeframe (this is never so true as it is with beech).

Continuing the process. The leader needs wiring, in order to continue the graceful line of the trunk. I’ll leave the leader and its terminal (apical) bud intact, as I need another season of strong growth in order to make the tapering transition look smooth and natural. Eventually, the tree will terminate at a height roughly halfway up this leader – but it’s going to take another three or four seasons to do all of the work that needs doing in the crown.

I had a little more work to do on that lowest right-hand branch. Now it looks more in sync with the remainder of the design.

We have another month at least until our beeches start showing signs of budding. Those tight dormant buds will unfurl, and the growth that is “baked in the cake” for this season will push on out. I’ll need to do some pinching, of course, but no other wiring until at least summer.

Let me know what you think of this beech. As the blog title says, it’s got potential.

Bonsai Odds & Ends – Big BC And Rip Van Winkle Color Up

by | Dec 12, 2020 | Bald Cypress, Care, Most Recent, Oaks, Willow, ZPC

big bc and rip van winkle color up

the bonsai files

Sneak Peek

Fall is supposed to mean fall color, but this is not necessarily the case here in the Deep South. With that said, I’m really proud of these two specimens.

Big BC and Rip Van Winkle Color Up

 

Down here in the Deep South you never know if you’ll get fall color on your deciduous trees. It’s truly hit or miss. With Bald cypress, though, you can exercise some control by defoliating in July. My big BC is a good example of this phenomenon. This year was a defoliation year, and true to form the tree produced a nice fresh set of foliage (which is the point, of course). That will often set you up for fall color (and more reliably if you’re farther north than I am). You can see here that it paid off for me.

“Rip Van Winkle,” Fall 2020. For those of you new to the site, this tree got named a few years back when it was about the last of my trees to wake up in spring.

This is, by far, the best this tree has looked in the fall since I collected it. What’s not apparent in this photo is the development that happened in 2020, whereby the tree moved into the ramification phase of its life as a bonsai. Willow oak produces willow-shaped leaves that tend to be quite long. In the early going you wonder if they’ll ever get smaller. I can tell you that they do, and I think this photo is proof. Yes, Willow oaks ramify, but you can’t rush this part of the development. The payoff comes years down the road, but it’s well worth the wait.

This photo is from December 2017, and I’m posting it to illustrate the principle I mentioned above. See how long the leaves are? That’s to be expected. If you aren’t famliar with the growth habit of the species, you might get frustrated if you’re getting leaves this long several years into your development work. But don’t despair. Before leaf reduction comes branch development. Notice the thickness of the branches in this photo. Compare them to the thickness of the branches in the previous photo. You can see where I’ve been going with this tree ever since it came home. We all want our bonsai to be finished quickly, but there are just some things that can’t be rushed (the base is 4″ across, to give you an idea of scale).

Trunk Building Oaks

by | Jul 23, 2020 | Care, Most Recent, Oaks, Pruning, Styling, Willow

trunk building oaks

the bonsai files

Sneak Peek

Most of the time we can get a good trunk line with our collected trees. Sometimes, however, you have to rebuild almost from the ground up.

Trunk Building Oaks

I collected this Water oak, Quercus nigra, from my iris swamp two years ago where it had grown up as a volunteer. The lower trunk was especially interesting to me, considering that having grown in such a wet environment it really took on a lot of character as the tree got bigger. With a base measuring 2.5″, I figured I’d have a nice oak bonsai about 20″ tall give or take.

Alas, as sometimes happens this tree did not push buds all the way up the trunk. With oaks, you frankly don’t know going in. You just lift them and hope for the best (at least that’s been my experience). Oaks are great bonsai subjects, so the effort is always worth it.

 

Here’s what I ended up with (in September of last year), after letting this strong shoot run. The base of the tree makes this effort continue to be worthwhile. You just have to have “future” vision.

This is more or less the way you always build trunks from specimens like this one. You let a shoot grow out, then you cut it back to just above a node so the tree will push a shoot from there and allow you to continue building.

Doesn’t look like much, right?

Now we’ve got almost another year’s growth on the tree. I put some wire on the shoot that grew out following the second chop, so I could get a little movement in what’s going to be the trunk and avoid having it become boring (too much work goes in to allow that to happen).

Here are a couple of tips for handling your trees during the trunk-building phase. One, pay no attention to all of those branches that have chosen to festoon the leader; they’re all going to get chopped off, sooner or later, because we’re trunk building (remember?); and two, always remember to keep a node close to where your leader is emerging from its origin. If you don’t do this, you’ll end up with an empty length of trunk that may not work with your design. You can always not use an extra shoot. If you’re missing one in a spot, that may only be remedied by grafting.

As I’ve noted before, whenever you carve on your deciduous trees you need to carve until you find living tissue. In this case, I ended up with a very nice angled chop which is going to be needed sooner or later – so why not now?

There’s nothing more to do on this tree for 2020. I need additional thickening at the transition point, and the fall engorgement of the branches should help with that. Come 2021, I may be ready to build the next section of trunk.

Here’s another oak that didn’t bud quite like I wanted. I’m pretty sure it’s a Willow oak, Quercus phellos, as the leaves are mostly willow-shaped and for species in the wild this is common.

So during the 2019 growing season I was able to do a little wiring of what the tree gave me. This is something you’ll no doubt do on many occasions, if you collect trees.

If you study this photo closely, you’ll be able to see where I chopped back the leader from the shot above, after it had grown out about five feet (and thickened, which was the goal). I’ve wired up the new leader, and wired another branch/leader on the right side that can be used in the design. My goal with this specimen is the so-called broom-form, which is very common for oaks in the wild.

I’d love to hear what you think about these two oaks. Leave me a comment below.

A Quick Take On Two Oaks

by | Jun 13, 2020 | Care, Oaks

a quick take on two oaks

the bonsai files

Sneak Peak

One of these trees you’ve seen before, the other you haven’t. The Water oak was featured in a previous blog, the Live oak is just now getting strong enough to begin its bonsai journey. Here’s where they are as of now.

A Quick Take on Two Oaks

You may remember this Water oak from the recent blog I posted about it. As I’ve noted before, just about every collected deciduous tree you’ll grow for bonsai will start out as either a stick in a pot or a stump in a pot. This one was no different. And from that humble beginning, this is it’s current state of development.

 

This is what makes this tree newsworthy as of today: notice that new shoot in the closeup. It simply could not be in a better spot. I knew there was a dormant bud here, but just because you have a dormant bud doesn’t mean it’s going to move. When I recently cut this tree back, there was a possibility that the energy would get redirected. And it looks like that’s what happened.

Once the shoot is long and strong enough, I’ll wire and position it. That should make for a better design.

This Live oak was collected in March. Live oaks are not easy to lift, and deciding when to do so is a challenge. This year I went on the assumption that since they change their foliage in March, collecting just prior to this event ought to work. Since both of the specimens I lifted from my field growing area survived, I’m thinking I’m onto something.

This is two months later. Nothing to write home about. Still, not giving up.

Just over two weeks later. That’s more like it. This tree has finally decided to wake up and start moving.

I’m a proponent of starting the design of recovering deciduous specimens as soon as possible. This is when the shoots/branches are the most supple, meaning they’re easier to introduce movement into. (They’re also most vulnerable to snapping off, so it takes a deft hand.)

I’m expecting that as the growing season gets longer in the tooth, this tree will have put on more growth than you’d see for many trees. The Live oak, stately and long-lived species that it is, grows surprisingly fast in its youth.

Let me know what you think of these two trees. I love oaks as bonsai subjects, and if you’ve tried them I suspect you do as well.