An American Elm Gets Potted

by | May 12, 2019 | American Elm, Care, Elms, Potting, Pruning, Styling

Every tree you work on will eventually reach a state where it’s got to go into a bonsai pot. Sometimes we delay doing so, and while that’s okay you don’t want to push any tree too far or you risk decline and, of course, the D word.

This American elm, Ulmus Americana, has grown from a bare trunk to this state in just two years. True to the species, it’s grown like a weed and requires frequent attention. And so, out of self-defense, I decided to put it in a bonsai pot so it won’t annoy me as much (only kidding, but you know you have some trees that demand a lot more attention than others).

While today’s work mostly consisted of trimming back the rampant growth, a little wiring was in order. The lowest left branch has been allowed to grow out, and still needs more in order to thicken, but it also need some movement in it. Hence the wire.

In this photo you can see I’ve started pruning back. Whenever you prune your trees, you have to do a little strategic thinking. You also have to be willing to sacrifice having the tree look good now in order to make it look better later. This is one of the tougher things we have to do as bonsai artists, but we owe it to our trees to make them just as good as we possibly can.

After still more pruning, and I wedged up the pot a little in order to see the potting angle better. The tree was too slanted in the pot.

This is a vintage pot I’ve had now for about 30 years. It was created by the late Richard Robertson of Rockport Pottery. I bought most of my pots from him when I first got into bonsai seriously.

Time to rustle the tree out of its nursery container. Plenty, plenty of roots. This sort of root density is typical of elms (this is two years’ worth). I also rediscovered some nice radial roots I’d forgotten about when I buried them in the pot.

And this is where the tree and I ended up today. Once growth has resumed, I’ll be able to judge how long it’ll take to finish out the work on it. My guess as of now is about two years to showable condition.

By way of stats, the trunk base is 2″ and the tree will finish around 22″ tall.

Let me know what you think of this American elm bonsai.

Potting Up A Water-Elm

by | May 5, 2019 | Care, Elms, Potting, Water Elm

We collected this nice smaller Water-elm in August of 2018. By October the shoots were strong enough for an initial wiring. Doesn’t look like much, does it? But the trunk base is 2″ at the soil, and with the trunk chop at 11″ I should be able to make a nice 16-18″ tall broom-form bonsai out of it. From humble beginnings ….

Fast-forward to today (5/5/19). This tree has grown with very good strength, and that tells me I have a solid root system to work with. This is the basis for all of your bonsai. Without a strong, healthy root system you can’t do a whole lot with any tree, no matter how nice the trunk and branches may be. So always be sure to devote the right amount of time and attention to this vital part of your tree that you only see once every few years.

My first order of business today is to be sure I have the correct front selected. Here’s one view.

Another view.

And another.

Another.

And back to the start. I don’t know about you, but I found with this tree that no matter how I turned it I could see a nice bonsai. Most trees are not amenable to the so-called “360 bonsai” approach, meaning they look good from every angle. It’s why bonsai have a front, sides and a back. But occasionally you’ll run across a specimen that looks good no matter how you turn it. A nice fringe benefit.

This tree had a couple of spots where the bark was unattached. The one on the bottom was my doing – sometimes things happen when you’re potting up a tree. Most elms have bark that easily detaches from the tree, so you always have to be cognizant of this fact when collecting and potting them. And even though you know what to expect, sometimes you get surprised!

I went ahead and removed the detached bark and scraped away a thin layer of wood underneath. Both areas will be treated with lime sulfur once they’re thoroughly dry. The one at the base will also need to be sturdied up with PC Petrifier.

The final step for today, potting and trimming. I left the leader alone, so that it will continue to run and thicken up. This will make the tapering transition look right. I expect that by fall I should be ready to prune the leader back.

Let me know what you think.

Sunday Evening Hawthorn Notes

by | Apr 28, 2019 | Care, Flowering, Hawthorn, Potting, Pruning, Styling, Wiring

Yesterday was my first one-on-one workshop for 2019. We got a lot of work done, mostly on three large BCs. This is a great time of year to do just about everything bonsai. Problem is, it’s hard to get it all done!

Right now in my garden we’ve completed first flush, and than invariably means trees that need a first trimming for the season. Below we check in on my big Riverflat hawthorn (I really need to name this tree).

This tree continues to rock along. Last year it got a new, larger home that suits the tree perfectly. And it’s clearly happy; the elongted shoots tell the tale.

A couple minutes of work later, here we are.

This is one of those trees I could study all day long. I never get tired of it.

Spring is also the time for making new bonsai. I had a great time today putting together a couple of new three-tree Parsley hawthorn groups. These smaller specimens naturally lend themselves to this style of bonsai.

And one more. There are two things to remember when you’re creating forests of tall trees: one, be sure that your tallest tree(s) have their foliage concentrated in the upper half to third of the trunk; and two, don’t let the branch spread get out of hand. If you observe these two rules, your trees will look quite mature and believeable.

All in all, it was a great bonsai weekend. The weather was great, and the trees even better.

Making A Small Cedar Elm Bonsai

by | Mar 23, 2019 | Care, Elms, Potting, Styling, Wiring

This small Cedar elm, Ulmus crassifolia, was collected in 2018 and is the last of three I had in the pot (they went on to their own pots last year). I love the nice natural shape this tree exhibits. If you look closely you can see the spot about halfway up where I removed a straight leader, in order to make for a more attractive shape for the tree. This specimen, though small (trunk base 1″), will make a nice bonsai. But it needs some work.

This tree obviously lends itself to the “naturalistic” style of bonsai for deciduous trees. In the landscape, most deciduous trees have a rounded crown and can be said to fit the “free-form broom” style. In my view, there’s seldom a good reason to try and force a tree to be something it clearly doesn’t want to be. So my job here is to simply bring out the shape the tree is already growing toward.

Step number one was to wire two of the branches in the crown, and position them most effectively.

Next comes one of those branches sticking straight up in back. Like to first one, it needs to be moved into a more horizontal position.

Now I move to the front, repeating the process.

It’s also time to get the tree into its ultimate position for potting, so I can see how the styling work has progressed. Nice.

In this photo I’ve trimmed the crown a bit, but also shifted the tree so that the low upright branch is a little more forward. I think this is better.

Pot selection is always important. This Chuck Iker round should suit the tree very well.

The final step for today. I uncovered a bit more trunk base when root-pruning, and it has a nice turn to it. The tree had a massive amount of root, but given how tough Cedar elms are it should shake off the root-pruning and never look back.

The low left upright branch needs to get stronger this year, so I’ll leave it untrimmed for a while to encourage more energy in that part of the tree. By summer there should be good balance.

The base of this tree is about 1″, and it’s 13″ in height from the soil. It’ll be posted for sale in a couple of months.

Let me know what you think.

Bonsai Odd & Ends: Making Soil & Potting Water-Elm #40

by | Mar 10, 2019 | Care, Elms, Potting, Soil, Water Elm

I’m often asked about the soil I use for my bonsai. Here’s a short blog about how I do it. There are countless formulas for bonsai soil, and the subject is one of the most hotly debated out there. My advice: find out what works for you. Here’s what works for me, and how I go about making it.

First things first. A bonsai soil must do a few things well. Here’s the short list:

  • Water retentive (the roots need water)
  • Aeratible (can help provide adequate air pockets; the roots must have air)
  • Free-draining (the water must not pool on the soil surface when you water – if it isn’t gone in one-Mississippi, you’ve got problems)
  • Not weigh a ton (there’s a limit to how light you can make your soil, and how light you should make it)

The photo at left is the larger-mesh of the two screens I use when making bonsai soil. Simple construction: a 1 x 4 x 8 cut into four equal lengths, assembled with deck screws. A piece of 1/4″ hardware cloth cut to fit and nailed to the underside with staples.

The smaller mesh screen. This one utilizes 1/16″ window screen. So that gives you an idea of the particle size soil I’m after. I use the larger-mesh screen to remove the chunks bigger than 1/4″, and the smaller one to remove the “debris” smaller than 1/16″ (which is sure to contribute to packing of the soil and water-logging plus anoxia for the roots).

If you make your own screens, the small-mesh screen needs to have a trim strip covering the window screen. If you don’t do this, it’ll rip away when you overload it with soil components.

Component 1: pine bark mulch. I buy it in bags from Home Depot. You can make a lot of bonsai soil with one bag of this stuff.

Here I’ve stacked the two screen, large mesh on top of small mesh. In goes a slug of pine bark mulch. It’s gotten wet from all the rain we’ve had lately, so I need to get it dried out.

Spread out on a nice warm day. It’ll dry pretty quickly. Then I lift the top screen and shake out some of the good stuff onto the bottom screen.

Here’s the good stuff, what stays on the small-mesh screen. I pick out any long but narrow pieces, spread it to dry, then shake it until I don’t see any significant small stuff coming through the bottom.

Component 2: Riverlite expanded clay lightweight aggregate. I use a 3/16″ coarse grade. I don’t know of anywhere you can buy this material in small quantities (I don’t sell it, so please no inquiries). You can use Turface(TM) as a substitute. I have used their All Sport(TM) product in the past. If you have a local landscape or sports park supply shop they should have it.

This is still wet from the rain, too, so I spread it out to let it dry.

Dried and ready to have the fines shaken out. This and the pine bark are mixed roughly 50:50.

The final product.

Water-elm #40 is starting to push buds now, so today was an ideal time to put it in a bonsai pot. Am I rushing things? Since I don’t have a lot of work to do in creating a tapering transition in the apex, the branch development work will go quickly even though the tree will now be in a bonsai pot. I know the tree is well-rooted, so the risk is low.

I’ve had this beautiful Chuck Iker pot for several years now. It was one of his first successful pieces sporting this particular glaze, which he calls “ancient jasper.” The color matches the new growth on a Water-elm very nicely.

The tree placed in the pot, and tied down.

And the soil all packed in tight. This tree should be in full leaf in about two weeks. Our weather had warmed up a few weeks ago, but then we had a cold snap that set many trees back a bit. Now it’s warmed up again, and I don’t think we have more than a few cool nights left this season.

I’ll post updates on this tree as it develops this year.

Let me know what you think of this composition. The pot may be a bit heavy for the specimen, but I’ll know better once I get some branch development.

New Bonsai Coming – Crape & Hawthorn

by | Mar 9, 2019 | Care, Crape myrtle, Flowering, Hawthorn, Potting, Styling

I lifted this ground-grown Crape myrtle specimen last summer. From a bare trunk it grew shoots very quickly, and I was able to wire the complete structure in the same season.

This is the same tree, nine months later. It’s got a nice structure and the leader is developing well. I will need to cut it back hard after the spring flush, which will thicken the transition point, and by this coming fall this will be a very nice Crape myrtle bonsai. The flowers are purple, and it’s almost certain to bloom this summer (and every summer).

The pot is a custom piece by Byron Myrick.

I expect to post this tree for sale once it has recovered from potting, most likely by the end of March.

I have a bunch of gallon-size Parsley hawthorns I haven’t planted out yet. Why not make a group planting with a few of them?

A nice result. If you have some smaller stock that you’d like to do something with, group plantings are a good answer. You get a nice bonsai right away.

The trunks on the larger two specimens are 1/2″, and the height of the planting is 16″. The pot is a terrific piece by Lary Howard.

This specimen should be posted for sale in mid- to late-April.