by Zach Smith | Apr 23, 2020 | Care, Crape myrtle, Flowering, Potting, Pruning, Styling
I was walking through the benches this evening and this Crape myrtle caught my eye. I started it from a cutting several years ago, and haven’t done more than maybe rough-prune it once. Today it called out “make something out of me” as I passed by. So I took it to the work bench, figuring it would make a fun 10-minute project.
(I apologize for the low-light photo. Late in the evening, sun going down, you know.)
When you have a piece of material like this, you have to always think about proportions. This Crape is a small shrub in a nursery pot. Making a bonsai-to-be out of it requires adjusting its proportions. This is one of the challenges I see beginners face all the time.
A few minutes of pruning changes everything! With the height of this specimen dramatically reduced, we now have a workable trunk thickness to height and spread ratio. It actually looks like a much larger specimen. So when it gets to its bonsai pot, it’ll possess the necessary “treeness.”
This is what I had in mind when I first noticed this Crape on the bench this evening. It’s not a huge specimen, but it looks like a full-grown Crape myrtle. A little more shearing is needed, but that’s easy-peasy.
What style of bonsai is this? It’s the well-known “I’m not sure but I like it anyway” style. But seriously, my plan is to guide it toward the so-called “pierneef” style, the iconic African savannah tree form. By shearing each of the trunks properly, I should be able to get to this result in a year.
Now about the pot. It’s a Lary Howard piece I ordered last year, but unfortunately it was broken in transit by the ever-enthusiastic shipping service. I really loved the pot, so I kept the pieces just so I could learn Kintsugi. This is my first effort. If you look closely, you can see the gold leaf I used along the mended cracks on either side of the front of the pot. Not a bad result at all.
by Zach Smith | Apr 11, 2020 | Care, Dogwood, Potting, Pruning, Styling, Wiring
This Roughleaf dogwood has made the most of its spring growth. Today’s the day to take the next step in making this tree into a bonsai.
Starting at the bottom, I removed the superfluous shoots in the lower right-hand area in preparation for wiring and positioning branches there.
I started by wiring a young shoot I’d noted in a previous blog, that is emerging from just the right spot at the low trunk chop to provide a foliage mass where I need it.
On the left, I needed more movement in a branch that was already fairly stiff. I wired it with some 3 mm aluminum wire, which allowed me to reposition it where I wanted. You can see that now I’ve gotten all of the low branches in good spots, with some nice movement in each.
I’m a big proponent of “hedging” bonsai in development; it’s a technique I’ve been practicing for over 30 years now, and which has gained popularity at the forum Bonsai Nut based on Walter Pall’s work. Hedging is more or less what it sounds like – you take your shears and shape foliage masses on your tree by rough-pruning to a silhouette. The tree responds by back-budding and increasing its twigging. The added benefit is it allows you to come back and do selective pruning as you build out foliage masses from top to bottom. This is the refinement stage we work toward as we get closer to the best expression of each of our trees.
The final step for today. I’ve had this unglazed Chuck Iker round for a few years now, waiting for the right tree to come along. I’m thinking this is the one. What do you think?
by Zach Smith | Mar 22, 2020 | Blueberry, Care, Chinese Elm, Crape myrtle, Elms, Potting, Styling
Here’s an update on my big Huckleberry bonsai that I potted this spring. As you can see, it has filled out with foliage. It’s normal for Huckleberries to take three years to really get “bushy” with foliage: year one is typically all structure building, making the branch structure and starting the apex; year two continues this process, along with some sub-branching development; and year three is when the tree first fills out. It also takes three years for a good blooming and fruiting. This tree put on a very nice show of flowers, and now it’s got a lot of fruit that’s ripen in a month or so. Now, it’s important to understand what the explosion of foliage this year means, and what it doesn’t mean. What it means is, the sub-branching (aka ramification) begins with this process. If you study this photo, you’ll see that I have a lot of foliage but no real organization at the secondary and tertiary branching level. There’s nothing to be done about that this year, except to prune overlong secondary shoots and watch for branching that’s gotten out of hand (it gets pruned severely or off altogether). Next year, I’ll have hardened off sub-branching that will be ready for grow and clip and editing, which will be the real building of the interior. But for now, I’m enjoying the vibrant health of this specimen. It’s growing exactly as I want it to.
I collected this Chinese elm in February. It’s a nice specimen – not as much taper as I’d like, but left to their own devices Chinese elms do not typically put on taper. This is normal for most deciduous trees, which want to grow straight and tall as fast as they can. But I can work with this one. There’s subtle taper from base to trunk chop, and I can easily build more into the crown. I’ll begin the process this year. The first step will be to get a basic structure going, and today I did that. I’ll post a blog showing the details this coming week.
Here’s the Pocomoke Crape I wrote about last weekend. I ordered in a custom pot (a beautiful Lary Howard piece), and went to town on that huge root mass yesterday. I brought the tree more upright during the potting process, and I think this makes for a more dramatic composition. I’d love to hear what you think about it.
by Zach Smith | Mar 7, 2020 | Care, Elms, Flowering, Hawthorn, Maples, Potting, Styling, Water Elm, Wiring
Spring is gathering speed now, and most everything on my benches (beech and most oaks are usually last) is coming into leaf. Water-elms also lag, so I took the opportunity today to pot up a couple of small ones. This is another of the trees that came home last summer. Nice smaller specimen, 1″ trunk and destined to finish at 12″. As with small bonsai in general (and you should take this as a hard and fast rule), your tree will consist of fewer than a dozen primary branches in total. This includes the branches in the crown. So here you see I’ve made a design with only four branches (so far). There will be two to four max in the crown. And that’s it!
I think this Chuck Iker round is going to go perfectly with this tree. The root system was very good, considering the tree has only been on the bench for a few months’ worth of growth (last summer/fall).
And another small Water-elm, trunk base slightly larger than 1″ and again it’ll finish at 12″. Here I’ve got five primary branches along with the leader, so again a simple structure. (If you crowd your branching too much in a small tree, there’s no way to avoid the “shrub” effect. That’s not bonsai. Less is more.)
Another nice Chuck Iker round helps to make this tree.
Fun with Swamp maples continues. I collected a handful of nice ones this year, my goal being to see how well they hold up over the next few years. I’ve been encouraged by the last two I brought home. By keeping an intact root mass and avoiding completely cleaning the roots, it appears they don’t become susceptible to trunk rot. If this does prove to be the key to success, then you’ll see more specimens over the next few years. They really do have some nice characteristics, so I’m excited. Today I wired a single branch on this very tall specimen (18″ trunk with a 1.5″ base; I had one I blogged about the past couple of years that went on to a client; I’m trying to duplicate that design). Why wire one branch? It should help redirect energy elsewhere, especially to the many trunk buds you can’t yet see. I’ll need this branch in my design, and I don’t want it getting too thick too fast. I’ll also be pruning it later in the season, to activate the buds that appear at the nodes on the branch.
Finally, this Parsley hawthorn came out of my ground growing area earlier in the year. It’s exploding with growth, as you can see. That includes some shoots on the recumbent trunk that will make upright trunks to go along with the four I currently have. So I’ll let them grow without restraint for some time, possibly even all season. I do want variety in the trunk thicknesses, but I can control that as this tree develops. You’ve probably noticed that one of the two largest trunks leans a bit too much, making the design less harmonious than it can be. I’ll notch this trunk a little later in spring, bringing it more upright.
by Zach Smith | Feb 29, 2020 | Care, Elms, Potting, Styling, Water Elm, Wiring
I’ve had the bonsai forest bug for a while now. I’ve always loved good forests, but only made a limited number. In the past year, I’ve really ramped up the assembly line. During this past summer’s Water-elm collecting season I intentionally set about to harvest some smaller trees with great character, so I could make a few unique forest bonsai from them. This trio was among them. Previously I wired and shaped the individual trees, and now that they’re starting to come out it’s the perfect time to bring them together. In any forest planting, the whole needs to exceed the sum of the parts. Let’s see if I can make this happen.
Because I had potted the two larger trees together with the intention of their roots growing together (that’s what you want in a forest), they were placed in this fine Byron Myrick tray in more or less the same position they started out. I think this is going to work well.
Though it’s sometimes hard to look beyond the focal tree or trees, at the end of every forest plan it’s the smallest tree(s) that makes the composition work. Why? Because part of the illusion of bonsai is a sense of depth in the planting. With individual trees, this is achieved by making sure there are open spaces in the tree’s structure that allow you to see from front to back. With group plantings, small trees placed toward the rear create this illusion due to the forced perspective it accomplishes. Now, with that said you have to ask yourself this question about this specific placement of the smallest tree – does it work, and is it harmonious? The answer is a very obvious no. Why is that? The two focal trees are growing in a pattern that suggests what you’d see in nature – that is, they have grown somewhat apart from one another to ensure they get the sunshine they need. That makes sense, and with the two focal trees there’s balance and harmony in their trunk lines taken together visually. But that small tree in the back? It’s growing right toward the middle tree, and that’s a disruption of the harmony achieved with the main trees.
Doesn’t this make all the difference in the world! All I had to do was turn the smallest tree so its trunk movement became harmonious with that of the two larger trees. So simple; so game-changing.
Here’s the forest after securing everything and filling the tray with soil.
Fed, mossed, watered. This is exactly what I was thinking last summer when we were searching for smaller Water-elms. I hope you like this forest as much as I do. The trees should continue to push new growth, and by the time another 4-6 weeks pass I should be doing the first trim on it. Just to give you an idea of size, the larger trees have trunks about 1″ thick; the overall height of the finished forest will be about 12″. I plan on posting this forest for sale in about a month, so stay tuned if you’re interested.
by Zach Smith | Feb 23, 2020 | Care, Elms, Flowering, Maples, Potting, Water Elm
I potted up this Water-elm last year. It’s a specimen from the 2018 collecting season, and since Water-elms develop so quickly I was able to move it along less than a year after it was first lifted. It’s a nice composition, but there’s one problem with it – the pot is just a bit too small. It’s starting to come into leaf, so today was the perfect time to repot into a more suitable container.
This was a pretty quick operation. The original pot and this one are both by Lary Howard; each is unique, but this one suits the tree better. I did have to do some light root-pruning to ensure the perfect fit, but the tree won’t care.
I was also able to lift the tree slightly in the pot, which shows the surface rootage better. Ramification is going to be the first order of business during this growing season. With Water-elms, I’ve found that grow and clip is the technique of choice once the original design is made by means of wiring and shaping. Occasionally you’ll need to do some wiring on a mature specimen, but it’s generally minimal.
This tree is available at our Water-Elm Bonsai page, if you’d like to take over the refinement work.
Sometime there’s more to the story. I started playing around with this Boxelder last year. I got a nice branch set in place, and carved down the trunk chop, and the tree went into dormancy like clockwork. Now the first signs of growth are on it, and since I really like the way it’s shaping up and since my expectations for it are firmly in check (it being a Boxelder and all), I thought I’d like to pot it up. Why not? The only problem was, I didn’t have a pot suited to it. Except … that pot the Water-elm was in looked like fitting this tree pretty well.
The tree had plenty of roots when I lifted it, so I’m confident it’s going to continue leafing out and not look back. I think the pot works very well with it. So I’ll give the tree some food and ignore it for awhile. Stay tuned for an update later in spring (assuming all goes well).
I got this Lantana from another collector last fall. It’s been in this homemade concrete training pot since I got it, but now it’s pushing new growth and today was the day it needed to go into a nice bonsai pot.
I think this Chuck Iker round just makes the tree. What do you think?
