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Formal Upright White-out Exercise: Part I

Formal Upright White-out Exercise: Part I

November 14, 2025

A white-out exercise is a fun way to explore design options. It helps see a new design without needing to cut off a branch.  This Ezo Spruce was designed in 2016 and has since filled out. It’s a skinny-trunked tree, and now there’s enough foliage mass that the design might be improved by cutting off […]

October Bonsai Projects

October Bonsai Projects

November 7, 2025

Here’s a handful of October projects and what we did with them.  A Vine Maple that has variously been called “The Boot” and “The Moose”. The current puzzle with this collected tree is that from the side, it has grown too much to the front. Where to cut it? One chunky branch to remove. And […]

A Quick Guide to Black Pine Fall Work

A Quick Guide to Black Pine Fall Work

October 31, 2025

A bonsai truism is that in fall we get to clean up the mess we initiated in the spring. And for pines, this mess is most apparent for the multiple flush species, like Japanese Black Pine. Black Pine will regrow from a technique known as decandling, when we cut off the spring shoots. The pine […]

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