Garden Tour: Andrew Robson
This is the second in a series of posts about the gardens of my former apprentices. This time, Andrew Robson, who was with me from 2016-2019. Like myself and Bobby Curttright, Andrew has chosen the modest-space professional bonsai garden, much like the Japanese do. The garden of Rakuyo Bonsai is only a mile from my […]
Boxwood Hard Prune in Summer
This Japanese boxwood was part of a hedge at my parent’s place. They were expanding their carport and asked if I wanted any of the plants for bonsai. I said yes. At the time, in 1994, the boxwood was about 40 years old, making it around 70 now. Like many broadleaf evergreens, after the first […]
How Large A Cut Needs Sealant?
The instinct to seal a recent cut is reflexive. Selective application may speed up our work, however, and economize sealant. In Bonsai Heresy I cover the arguments before and against cut sealants, on page 216. Although I cover the differences between bonsai and arborist techniques—and that both are right for their purposes—one thing I don’t […]
Three Azaleas—Three Techniques
At the end of their spring blooming period, these three Satsuki azaleas needed attention. Each one came with a different puzzle. What to do? I’ll let our answers unfold in the photo essay. Enjoy! This Satsuki ‘Kinsai’ has a common geriatric problem. It hasn’t been pruned back in a long time. The whole tree is […]
Bunjin Part I—What IS This Weird Thing?
Bunjin get a bad rap or a badass rap. There’s also those who will pass it by on the bench without comment. I figure the no comment is the most interesting reaction. I thought it would be fun to explore bunjin in a several part blog series. In this first part we’ll touch on bunjin’s […]
An Alternative Approach to Accent Plants
This spring I planted a meadow next to my house. I had no idea what I was doing. The last time I’d planted herbaceous plants in the ground was in grade school, in my parents vegetable garden. With that dim memory, I took out the grass, prepared the soil, spread the seeds around, and dusted […]
Yellow Cedar, Second Draft-
The second wiring of a tree is like the second draft in writing. It’s when, as author Neil Gaiman puts it, “You get to show you knew what you were doing all along.” When I was in graduate school I looked forward to doing my laundry. It was the only time of the week when […]
Hinoki Cypress Pruning and Maintenance
For over fifteen years this Hinoki has been trained uniformly. No upper branch got thick, no lower branch got weak. It’s wonderful work by a client of mine, grown from a young sapling. With benches full of trees, it’s easy to pass a tree by several years in a row. Hard to know why I […]
David De Groot’s Retrospective at the Pacific Bonsai Museum
I had the privilege of walking through the Pacific Bonsai Museum with former Curator David De Groot, talking with him about the trees he’d selected for his personal retrospective. This Redwood is an iconic De Groot tree—one of my favorites of his—rooted on both ends, forming a bridge that recalls a hill and with branches […]
Bonsai Heresy: Errata
For those who have already bought Bonsai Heresy, thank you. The book is now in its second printing. In that reprint we corrected a few errors. Here are some corrections: on page 105 I inadvertently suggested that ponderosa is one of the single-flush pines you can pinch; I don’t advise that on page 151 I […]
Michael Hagedorn 