by Zach Smith | Jul 10, 2016 | Bald Cypress, Care, Potting, Styling, Wiring
Last year this Bald cypress, Taxodium distichum, suffered a bout of chlorosis. This is a condition that isn’t predictable or readily explainable – the causes are well enough known, but you can have a single specimen on your benches suffer under the same growing conditions as others that do not exhibit any symptoms at all.
I removed the tree from its bonsai pot and placed it in a growing tub, and treated it with Ironite®. I was able to see improvement within a month or so. I left the tree alone, just watering and feeding as normal, through the remainder of the 2015 growing season.
This year the tree grew like crazy, with no sign of chlorosis. As you can see, however, we’ve reached that point in the year where lack of air circulation and heat can cause the foliage in the interior of your trees to die. While this doesn’t affect the health of the cypress long-term, it’s unattractive and serves no useful purpose to the tree.
July is the perfect time to defoliate healthy bald cypresses. Though this tree suffered with chlorosis last year, I judged by the look of the growth this spring that the problem was behind me and it was okay to go ahead and defoliate. I also decided to push the envelope a bit, and put the tree back in its lovely Chuck Iker home.
This shot makes it easy to see how much growth the tree has put on! If you compare this photo with the first one, it’s clear how well it’s developing. This is especially evident in the progress I’m getting in the crown. The grow and chop process works beautifully, provided you take the time to fully execute it.
Here’s a close-up of the apex. You can see how far it’s come. I’ve grown and chopped it three times before today, and now it’s time for round four.
The tree is wired out now. Notice how well the branch development is coming along – I’m getting ramification and the branches have thickened up nicely. There’s more to do, of course, but the right techniques properly executed will complete the development of this bonsai.
And finally, the tree back in its pot. The trunk measures 5″ in diameter 4″ above the soil surface. It’s currently 32″ to the tip of the leader. The finished height will most likely be 30-32″.
I should have new growth in two weeks, assuming the tree doesn’t object too much to the treatment it got today. The foliage will be fresh and green, which will allow me to show it in the fall.
I’d love any feedback you might want to share on this bonsai.
by Zach Smith | Jul 6, 2016 | Care, Flowering, Potting, Styling
I don’t often grow exposed-root style bonsai – also known as neagari to the Japanese – but when I run across a specimen that lends itself to the style it’s hard to say no. While you probably wouldn’t want a whole bench full of nearagi, one or two can make a cool addition to any collection.
You’ve been watching this Crape myrtle, Lagerstoemia indica, since I potted it in April of this year. Here’s a quick progression:
This last photo, just three months after the initial potting, shows how quickly a Crape myrtle will grow. “Weed-like” is a good way to put it. Plus … take a close look at this tree and you’ll see flower buds about to open. I’ll post a photo later this week when it comes into bloom.
Here’s another neagari, this time a Twisted Pomegranate, Punica granatum Nejikan. This one has a story attached to it. Back in 2012 I made a trip to the Los Angeles area, and while I was there I visited my (then new) friend and fellow bonsai nurseryman Bob Pressler. We had a nice visit, and before I left he asked if I could send him some bald cypress seeds. That was certainly not a problem, as I have access to plenty. So I mailed off a dozen or more cones to him. In return he sent me a few plants, among which were two Twisted Pomegranates. I potted them up in cut-down 3-gallon nursery pots and more or less neglected them. Winter 2014 killed one, so that left me with this specimen.
This past spring I brought the tree to the Louisiana Bonsai Society’s Spring Show. I had been asked to do the Saturday demonstration, and had a couple of pieces of nursery stock to work on. At the end of the demo, I wanted to illustrate how much you can hack back the root system of a tree and have it survive. To say that going from a 3-gallon nursery pot to this shallow 6″ Chuck Iker round amazed the observers is an understatement!
But here’s the really interesting part. I brought the tree home and set it on the bench, where it could get watered but otherwise famously neglected. I mean, I really beat up on the poor thing at the show. Then I waited. And waited. And … waited. Two weeks went by. Nothing. Three weeks. Nothing. Four … Five … Six. I had just about given up (and resolved to being chagrined at the next club meeting) when one day I was passing it on the bench and thought I noticed a tiny bit of red. Upon closer inspection, I saw it was a bud! Sure enough, this little guy had defied all the cutting and recovered.
I really love the exposed roots on this one. Though it’s a small specimen, with a trunk base of only 1″, I think it’s developing into a pretty cool little bonsai.
I’m working on propagating this species, and hopefully will be able to offer some in the coming years.
by Zach Smith | Jul 4, 2016 | Care, Elms, Potting, Styling, Water Elm, Wiring
Yesterday I posted some work I did on a nice collected Water-elm, Planera aquatica, that couldn’t work as a single bonsai. I basically sliced through the connected root, producing a twin-trunk specimen and a three-trunk raft. Today I did an initial styling on both. Here are the before and after photos of each:
I like all of the trees I style, but from time to time one comes along that really grabs me. This is one of those trees. It’s certainly not a huge specimen, the trunk base is 2″ and it’ll finish at 16″, but it’s just got that special something (at least for me). The Byron Myrick oval really complements this tree nicely.
This one required a good trimming to get the design started. The largest trunk had suffered some dieback, so I wired up a new leader and will let it run without any trimming for the remainder of the growing season. By next year I’ll have a nice “Three Amigo” raft-style bonsai or maybe something bigger depending on what I run across.
by Zach Smith | Jul 3, 2016 | Care, Elms, Potting, Water Elm
What’s wrong with this picture? I collected this raft-style Water-elm, Planera aquatica, last October. It’s not hard to find both clump-style as well as raft-style Water-elms, since the natural growth habit of the species is to produce basal shoots and grow in a shrub-like fashion. Most of the time we get rid of the low growth, but on occasion a specimen will stand out and make you want to see where it’ll go as a clump or raft.
In the case of this tree, I made one simple but significant error when taking it as a raft. Can you spot what it is?
Though it’s a little hard to see from this angle, the largest trunk in this group has some nice trunk movement while the smaller trunks are all dead straight. In all multi-trunk bonsai, you want there to be consistency in the growth habit of each of the trunks. If one is straight they should all be straight. If one has a nice flowing movement they should all have nice flowing movement. In this case, the smaller trunks just don’t reflect the character of the largest one.
What to do? Well, why not make two bonsai out of this group? So I sawed right through the base. Here’s what I got.
It’s easier to see the nice movement of the largest trunk, and also easier to see why the piece needed to be split. Now I’ve got something to work with.
Here’s the first bonsai-in-the-making from this piece of material. Once I had cut through the root base, I discovered a nice turn in the trunk and planted the tree accordingly. There’s good rootage most of the way around, but you can see the flat edge above where I cut through it. In order to induce roots I dusted with rooting hormone and installed some “magic moss” over the area in the pot. I call it magic moss because it doesn’t ever seem to dry out, and everywhere it grows in my pots roots tend to form beneath it. Once I get some roots in the cut area I’ll be able to complete the nebari of this tree.
I plan to do the initial styling on this tree tomorrow and will post the result.
Here’s the rest of the original piece, three main trunks along with a new shoot or two coming off the root base. I didn’t have a smaller tray so I used my vintage Richard Robertson rectangle. It doesn’t look half-bad, but I’m thinking I’ll see if I can find a companion raft-style piece during this collecting season to add to my new forest.
I’ve love to hear any comments you might have.
by Zach Smith | Jun 18, 2016 | Care, Elms, Potting, Pruning, Styling, Water Elm, Wiring
This water-elm, Planera aquatica, has grown out well since getting its first wiring earlier in the spring. Enough so, in fact, that I had to unwire the new leader a few weeks ago to keep the wire from binding. But you can see how far the leader has extended, so no surprise there.
Lately I’ve been thinking it was time for this tree to inhabit its first bonsai pot. After all, building the crown will not require growth beyond what I can get in a bonsai pot. The branches are well on their way already, and in fact need to be cut back to begin the next phase of their development. So why not?
First a trim to bring the branches back to their ultimate limit. The style of this tree requires branching that stays close to the trunk. I’m doing this because the gnarly base of this tree is its best feature, and allowing the branches to run too far will only detract from it. So for future development and care, keeping the branches close to the trunk will be necessary.
Notice I’ve left the leader alone. It needs to continue to run in order to both thicken its base as well as to help heal the angled cut I’ve made. Water-elms heal cuts best where there’s really vigorous growth, and the crown of the tree tends to be reliably vigorous.
And the final result. This Byron Myrick round suits the tree well, don’t you think? It’s a little hard to see in this photo, but the surface rootage is very nice all around. This only serves to make the trunk base that much more impressive.
The trunk is 3″ at the soil surface and 2.5″ above the root crown. The finished height is going to be about 18″.
If you’d like to take over the development of this bonsai, it’s available at our Elm Bonsai sales page.
by Zach Smith | May 15, 2016 | Care, Elms, Potting, Sweetgum
May is Sweetgum, Liquidambar styraciflua, collecting time. We were gone the first week of the month on vacation so I’m a week behind, but the work has now begun. Here are a couple of specimens I’m sure will make nice bonsai:
This one is on a lateral subsurface root, meaning it needs to be a connected-root style tree. In a couple of weeks it should be producing new buds, and that’s when I’ll have an idea where I’m going with it. Trunk base is 1.75″ and it’s 10″ to the tip of the taller leader (which needs to be shortened, by the way, it’s pretty ugly right now).
This specimen is a little more traditional, with a nice turn to the lower trunk. Incidentally, I didn’t wire that curve into the trunk, it grew that way on its own. This one also has a 1.75″ trunk base and is 10″ to the chop. It’ll be ready for an initial styling next month.
I lifted this Cedar elm, Ulmus crassifolia, today and direct-potted it into this lovely Chuck Iker round. It had terrific branching straight out of the ground; all I had to do was cut it back to shape. The trunk base is just under 1″ and it’s 12″ tall. Nice upright specimen, don’t you think?
In a couple of weeks I’ll know if I was successful with this one. Cedar elms are tough as nails, so I’m pretty confident.
By the way, this is another of my best bonsai trees for beginners. If you don’t have one, get one. You won’t be sorry.
I expect to post these trees for sale next month.
