When Does Wood Swell?
If we wire our trees, we might wonder this. We notice that there are times of the year that wire bites in. And there are times that it doesn’t. When should we be most alert? Here are a few pointers: Every year, trees grow two annual rings. If you were to cut a trunk, you’d […]
A Podcast Episode on Shade Cloth
A couple weeks ago on the Bonsai Wire podcast Carmen Leskoviansky and I covered “Shade Cloth”. Carmen and I gave the subject our best thoughts. Or so we thought… I listened to it last week and realized one thing we didn’t talk about is water conservation. Though we are understandably concerned about the water holding […]
Videos Of Crataegus Bonsai
This week, a few videos we’ve made over the years, and a few that others have made. Perhaps there’s one or two you haven’t seen yet. Enjoy! Above, an older video from 2016 that I enjoy, done by my friend Alan Thompson. In the six years since then the trees have put on some foliage! […]
A Simple Guide To Directional Pruning
While conifers are often wired for minute adjustment of twigs, the approach for deciduous trees is often with scissors. This is a Stewartia. First cut suggested by red line. In directional pruning we cut to a shoot going in a direction we want. A way to preempt this is to cut to a bud—assuming we […]
So You Want A Moss Garden?
Many of us want moss in our bonsai garden—a green carpet we can walk on to visit our royals on their posts and benches. The bewildering array of mosses can leave us at a loss for what to use. There’s pincushion moss, a dome of soft green. Runner mosses that scamper over soil and logs. […]
Foemina Juniper Styling
This is not a juniper variety we see often these days, Foemina. It was really popular back in John Naka’s day, in fact his brilliant “Goshin”—part of the National Bonsai Collection—is made of Foemina. This Foemina was intended as part of a forest but after accumulating several trees, it felt more like a stand-alone than […]
Summer Chojubai Trim
Summer is a good time to look at dwarf flowering quince ‘Chojubai’ and determine what, if anything, needs trimming. Younger Chojubai, about 12 years from a cutting, in early July (Northern Hemisphere). Shoot growth has just stopped and hardened off. This is a clump with several trunks. Notice longer shoot growth on the bottom areas. […]
Construction of Metal Stand for Juniper
Though this little Juniper has already made a cameo or two on the blog, this post is a photo essay of the construction and thinking behind its new metal support. Enjoy the photos! A few of our elements for this project: A Rocky-mountain Juniper (collected courtesy Backcountry Bonsai), grafted about 10 years ago with Itoigawa […]
Revisiting a Nurse Log Composition
At the start of the pandemic in April of 2020 my apprentice at the time, John Eads, and I took off for a burn area in a forest. We were seeking a charred log for a new project. We planted native plants on one we’d found, trying to imitate a “nurse log”. More about this […]
Part II: The Bonsai Imaginations of Pierre Leloup
Here’s another landscape by Canadian artist Pierre Leloup. I spent time up in Quebec and Ontario as a youth among the lakes and islands, and his work is an evocation of my memory. For this composition, which is so complex, it seemed best to show the final shot first. The design was thought out in […]