Bonsai Odds & Ends – Privet And Bald Cypress

by | Aug 1, 2020 | Bald Cypress, Most Recent, Potting, Privet

bonsai odds & ends – privet and bald cypress

the bonsai files

Sneak Peek

This is just a quick redux on the ‘Pasture Privet’ I posted about the other day, plus a couple of others that got potted; plus it was time to check in on the big Bald cypress I defoliated, styled and potted recently.

Bonsai Odds & Ends – Privet and Bald Cypress

I knew by the amount of growth on this tree that it was strong enough to go into a bonsai pot. When I took it out of its nursery container and saw all the nice white feeder roots, my hunch was right. It took just a few minutes to get it settled into this very fine Byron Myrick round (love the squiddy).

 

Here’s another of the gang that I styled and potted. Same thing with the amount of roots. It got a lovely Chuck Iker round.

I love these “kissing cousin” twin-trunk specimens that are partially fused. You can make nice designs with them.

The base on this little tree is just amazing, by the way, one of the best I’ve seen.

This is a nice upright specimen with great trunk character. Also a fine Chuck Iker pot.

These last two privets will fill out quickly over the next month or two, and I’ll post them for sale when the time comes.

Last but not least, here’s the big BC I recently defoliated, potted and styled. It has reliably pushed lots of fresh new growth, and this should give me a great shot at some fall color when the time comes. In the meantime, the development of this very fine specimen continues. I expect to offer it for sale in 2021. It’s going to make a great addition to someone’s collection.

It’s fun to check back on these trees once they’ve reached a certain stage of development. Here’s a photo of this guy before it had any buds on it, back in March of 2018. Love that flute in the trunk that goes all the way up.

I imagine I’ll put together and post a progression later this year.

Defoliating, Potting And Styling A Large Bald Cypress

by | Jul 3, 2020 | Bald Cypress, Care, Most Recent, Potting, Pruning, Styling, Wiring

defoliating, potting and styling a large bald cypress

the bonsai files

Sneak Peek

It’s July 4th weekend, so the traditional cookouts, fireworks and defoliating Bald cypresses are in order. That’s right, defoliating Bald cypresses is a tradition for BC lovers. Today’s victim is also getting his first bonsai pot.

Defoliating, Potting and Styling a Large Bald Cypress

I wasn’t kidding when I said most BC’s get pretty shaggy as summer marches on. This one, which I’ve been working on for three years now, is a perfect example. The tree has shown good strength this year, allowing me to take the next step in building the apex and tapering transitionl that means it’s time for defoliating, potting and styling the tree.

 

I thought you’d like to see a closeup of the apex I’m building. You can see where I chopped the leader early this season. It dutifully pushed a bud in the right spot, and that bud took off and thickened up in just a couple of months.

Here’s the tree, almost completely nekkid. They look like weird brooms that you couldn’t use to sweep up anything, don’t they? But that’s all part of how we make a well-developed Bald cypress bonsai.

I’m sure you’re wondering why I left the foliage at the very top of the tree. I want the energy focused in the apex of the tree, in order to finish thickening that transition point. By letting the leader run, I’ll get what I need. So while the rest of the tree is rebudding, the apex will be drawing energy and extending.

Here we are after a trim and a trunk-brushing. When you defoliate your cypresses, it’s a good time to do some cleanup since you can really see all of the trunk.

Out of the nursery pot. The root system is healthy; the tree was not as root-bound as I would have expected, but that’s okay.

Here’s a shot from the backside. Good surface roots all around. I always bury collected trees sufficiently to protect the surface roots that come with them. This is an example of sacrificing current pleasure for future pleasure. When you lift a tree that has great rootage, it’s only natural to want to be able to see it. Unfortunately, if you succumb to that desire there’s a good possibility that one or more of those roots will dry out and die. So bury ’em deep!

I got this custom pot from Lary Howard just recently, and I think it goes beautifully with this specimen. The only thing left to do now is to make something out of that wild set of branches.

The styling part is always the most fun. This is another very good reason to defoliate your Bald cypresses about this time of year. You can very easily see the trunk and branch structure, and this certainly helps you correct any issues or just refresh and update the style you had in mind to begin with.

This is an exciting Bald cypress bonsai in the making. It only lacks two things: one, a fully developed apex including a smooth tapering transition; and two, maturity in the branches. But we’re well on our way.

The stats: trunk base is 5″ across 5″ above the soil surface; root spread 10″; finished height will be 34-36″.

Let me know what you think of this one.

Building A Small Tree By Building A Tall Tree

by | Jun 6, 2020 | American Elm, Elms, Most Recent, Potting, Pruning, Styling, Wiring

building a small tree by building a tall tree

the bonsai files

Sneak Peak

I’ve written before about using the sacrifice branch to thicken the trunk base of a tree while building the future bonsai. Here’s another good example of this technique.

Building a Small Tree By Building a Tall Tree

This American elm was grown from a cutting I started about five years ago. It’s been entirely container grown. Two years ago I put it in this larger nursery container, with the idea of building trunk size. This happens faster in the ground, of course, but you can also do it (albeit more slowly) in a container. The use of a sacrifice branch is one of the best tools when container growing your trees for size.

Here it’s easy to see the future bonsai – the small tree – in this rather tall tree (almost four feet tall, to be exact). I’m after a smaller bonsai with this specimen, so there’s no reason not to chop it today and move it into the final stretch.

Here we are after the unceremonious chop. Now we’re starting to zero in on our goal.

Always look for opportunities to improve taper and movement. I was able to cut the leader back to what will become the new leader.

 

Here it’s wired up. Much better.

Now some wire on the right-hand branch. It’s now in a better position.

Time to cut off just about all the roots. This sort of pruning may look dangerous, but since I already removed 90% of the top of the tree, removing 90% of the root shouldn’t cause any harm. (I’ve done this countless times, and for most deciduous trees there’s never much risk.)

I just got in this Lary Howard round the other day. The warm ochre tones will go beautifully with the fall color of the leaves.

Here I’ve mostly defoliated the tree, and also given it a final pruning to bring in the silhouette. I should see new buds in about a week or so. I’ll then let the tree grown out for strength and then cut it back hard. That will really get the ramification process going, along with leaf-size reduction.

Stay tuned for updates.

Finding The Right Tree For The Pot

by | May 26, 2020 | Care, Lantana, Most Recent, Potting

finding the right tree for the pot

the bonsai files

Sneak Peak

When we have a really nice tree in our collection, we want the perfect pot for it. And we may search for years until we find just the right pot. Much less often, we have a pot that we need to find the right tree for. Here’s one of those times.

Finding The Right Tree For The Pot

I don’t know about you, but I often have great trees looking for that perfect pot. It can sometimes take years to finally achieve the goal, after which you have the perfect match and a great composition. This is one of those cases where I had an awesome pot that had a place in my pot collection, tree or not, but I sure did want to find the perfect tree for it.

 

I just pulled this Lantana, that I acquired recently, to start working on it. As I studied the tree, it occurred to me that maybe I had just the pot to make a perfect composition. After cleaning off the old soil and pruning the roots in order to get a flat base, my idea paid off.

Here’s the new bonsai, all tucked in. I don’t think I could have made a better match.

The next to last step for today was to defoliate. This is always advisable with deciduous and broadleaf evergreens (excluding boxwood) that you pot up as summer approaches. Doing this takes the stress off the root system, and allows the tree time to get accustomed to its new home.

The pot is a unique Lary Howard piece, by the way.

What do you think? Did I do a good job of matching tree to pot?

Rulebreaking 101 – Red Mulberry

by | May 20, 2020 | Care, Most Recent, Mulberry, Potting, ZPC

rulebreaking 101 – red mulberry

the bonsai files

Sneak Peak

Rules are made to be broken, right? Yes and no. When you break a rule of art, what you end up with had better be a lot better than if you’d stuck with the rule. In bonsai it’s not any different ….

Rulebreaking 101 – Red Mulberry

I recently acquired this Red mulberry, Morus rubra, from another collector. It’s one of those trees that just calls out to you. The structure doesn’t really fit a familiar mold – and yet, you can’t take your eyes off of it. It’s quite a tree, and certainly ready for a bonsai pot.

What about this view? Isn’t it amazing! It’s hard to describe the style, though if pressed I guess the fallback would be informal upright. But that’s certainly not accurate, and doesn’t do the tree justice.

But this is where the problem comes in. The apex of this tree does not move toward the viewer; quite the contrary. When we’re learning all about bonsai, one of the rules is that the apex of your tree must always move slightly toward the viewer. It’s a metaphor that represents the tree “bowing.” So if you’re attending a workshop or demo, one of the things the artist will tell you is to be sure the apex of your tree comes slightly toward the viewer. And they’re absolutely right!

So in this view of the tree, after I potted it up, the rule is being adhered to. I’ve got the apex of the tree moving toward the viewer. Rules are followed! And it’s not a bad bonsai, right?

And yet …

In this view, the apex of the tree is moving away from the viewer. Is this a better bonsai? In my opinion, there’s no question this is the best front for this specimen. The deadwood feature is visible. The curve of the trunk and taper are spot-on. That terrific branch with all its development balances the composition. What’s not to like?

I’m convinced that this is one of those trees where you have to forget bonsai tradition in order to make the best bonsai out of what you’re working with. I could have force-fit the tree into something that followed the rules – but why end up with something less in the process?

I’d love to hear what you think about this specimen. It’s already one of my favorites.

Maple Sunday

by | May 3, 2020 | Care, Maples, Potting, Pruning, Styling

maple sunday

the bonsai files

Sneak Peak

The maples are going gangbusters right now. Some have been cut back a couple of times already. This sort of rapid growth is not only common, but essential with collected trees that are in the recovery process. The faster the recovery growth, the faster you can design your tree. Simple stuff.

maple sunday

You get a lot of bang for your buck during spring, with newly collected trees. Once they take off, you’re able to take advantage of strong growth all over the tree to accomplish the goals you have at that particular time. Deciduous trees harvested from the wild are typically trunk-chopped and potted, and typically don’t have any branching at all. We variously describe them as trunks, stumps or even the humorous “stick in a pot.”

You’ve seen this Boxelder before. I had the advantage when it was collected of an alternative leader emerging low on the trunk, and this I knew would save me development time, possibly even a year’s worth. I spotted an appropriately placed bud on this leader, then nurtered it as it grew out tenuously. As you can see in this photo, that tenuous bud cum shoot is now over two feet long and thickening rapidly. I have no intention of cutting it back any time soon. Every inch it grows helps thicken the section of new trunk below it. This is exactly what you want when working a trunk chop.

Now let’s move over to Swamp maples. We collected several this year so I could expand on my learning experiment/adventure with the species. This one is a nice twin-trunk, and like the other maples has put on all of this branch growth since the tree first started budding back in late February.

Today’s chore: selective pruning. I have way more shoots than I’m going to need, so there’s no point in keeping the extra. This is a way you direct energy in your trees. By removing unwanted growth, the tree tends to redistribute its energy to what’s left. Not that they won’t rebud where you take off branches, which is almost always going to happen, you just give the remaining branches a chance to outpace them and get better established (while you rub off those insistent buds when they pop out). In time the battle ends, and those buds that pushed early on stay dormant.

As you can see, I reduced the recovery growth on the smaller trunk dramatically. I have two internodes below the pruning mark, and both will likely sprout buds. I want the lowest one, but I left myself two chances because that’s the smart thing to do.

On the larger trunk, I just pruned away shoots that won’t be needed, and shortened the strong right-hand shoot near the apex so it doesn’t overwhelm the others. The leader I want is the highest shoot on the left near the apex.

Here’s the Swamp maple I wrote about recently. As you probably remember, my whole plan with this tree was to develop it as quickly as I could and rush it into a pot. My goal in this is to try and gain a better understanding of how to successfully collect, develop and maintain this species without losing specimens to fungal attack. My thinking has centered around the concept that there’s some factor in the native soil that is vital to the tree’s survival.

So here’s the tree is a reasonably oversized pot, a nice Byron Myrick oval. I did have to remove a little of the tap root that came home with the tree, but that shouldn’t affect things too dramatically. There’s still a lot of native muck surrounding the roots.

The branches are overlong, but this will be corrected once they thicken up some more. I have internodes closer to the trunk whose buds will activate once I do the pruning – hopefully by late summer.

I don’t expect to know if I’ve been successful for a couple of years, but if everything works out I will have cut years off the development of this tree as a bonsai.

For now, we wait.