Three Years Of A Spruced Up Engelmann
This Engelmann spruce was originally owned by a guy up in Seattle and I suspect it grew in a mica drum pot for a couple decades. Collected in the Cascades many years ago, it has nice flaky, mature bark and sports a healthy community of lichen up and down the main trunk. It was growing […]
Revisiting a Unique Rocky Mountain Juniper—Seasonal work
This is an intriguing tree. I could look at it all day. It was styled last year with the other side as the front. Then the lower branch died, which is a hard thing to prevent in a juniper if it’s got that idea going. About that time I was strongly considering this new front, […]
Developing an Unpromising Sierra Juniper Bunjin–student work from Seasonal
This is a product of my Seasonal sessions. A few years ago I bought this weedy looking Sierra juniper, removed the field soil and repotted it into a pumice/akadama mix in a plastic nursery pot with help from Seasonal students in 2009, and styled it with a Seasonal group in 2010. It really did look […]
White Pine: Revisited
This white pine might be familiar to some… it was featured in a post from April 2, 2010. On that day I styled the tree by turning the front 180 degrees… with my client’s approval! See the original post: http://crataegus.com/2010/04/02/white-pine-styling/ Some of the bottom branches appear to be strengthening, and that was good to see. I […]
Black Pine Grafted Ponderosa: STYLED
This small pine goes way back to when I was a potter, trying to sell them at my first convention in the mid 90’s in Harrisburg, PA. I met Andy Smith there, and we traded a pot for a tree. He collected the yamadori pine in South Dakota. For years I grew it as a […]
Corylopsis spicata: An old Winter Hazel
I feel a bit guilty about not showing more deciduous trees I’m working on, as they form about 50% of my collection. The reason is that conifers can sometimes be designed in a day, whereas the deciduous I have are either very young, or poorly balanced and old—both of which need 10 or 15 years […]