October Bonsai Projects

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 another.

Now the tree leans forward in a welcoming rather than a needy way.

The front after the cut.

The tree, incidentally, was part of a series exploring vulnerability and fragility, using a counterweight as the tension. The soil mass to the left has a big stone buried in it.

I suppose it does look like a boot. Until you look at the branches, and there’s the moose antlers.

Next up is a Stewartia. Even if you can’t grow Stewartia where you live (it prefers cool, moist climates) I hope sharing these design puzzles and maintenance suggestions will help with your own decisions.

The top of the trunk was cut back for better taper. We left a strong stub to use as an anchor point for the new leader. Here the new leader (right) is being guy wired to the stub using a piece of grey spline to protect the leader from the wire. Spline is used for sealing windows. It has a hole through it that you can thread a skinny wire to help prevent swift wire bite-ins.

Where we left it for the day, though you could wire the branches now. We’ll wait for the new leader to thicken and take over and then the thick stub on top will be removed, perhaps in a year.

Azaleas are also on the docket in the fall. I’ll do a post on azalea fall work soon, like our spring overview of the fishtail technique. 

Our team for the first fall Seasonal class this year. It took a few minutes to defoliate this large beech, a quick job with four. 

Here’s our de-leafed Japanese Beech. A reconstructed tree that still has imbalances and areas of development. 

The big buds on the ends of the shoots were cut off. If you leave them, the interiors tend to weaken. This is small scissors work. 

A wild young Japanese Maple clump is next. Front approximately here. 

Many nips later…

…we leave it looking only slightly more promising. Several long extensions were chosen and left for next year’s thread grafts. A long section in the middle of the largest trunk has no branches, which we hope to solve with threads. 

And finally another young plant, a Gingko. 

At this youthful stage a late annual trim is a good plan, rather than a trim in summer and again in fall. Cutting only once helps build plant mass for a young tree. 

We left several shoots growing off the top to maintain the dominance of the not-very-thick main trunks. Gingko has a wide range of climate adaptability and appears to need only a short dormant period.