Burning Bush—Seasonal Styling and Potting
This tree was originally collected by Kevin Yates from a park in Eugene. Apparently it had been kept stunted by the nutria that lived in a pond nearby. When Kevin saw this post he recognized his tree and corrected me on several points on its origin- Thanks! Euonymus is a popular genus for bonsai. The […]
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 […]
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 […]
Another Yamadori Rocky Mtn. Juniper–
This juniper has been growing in my backyard for a year. It’s a client tree, another of the great native yamadori that was collected by Randy Knight of Oregon Bonsai. Junipers don’t like to be repotted very early, they do better when repotted in late spring when it’s warmer. So this tree, which is in […]
Black pine restyling in Japan
The first post I made of the Japan trip suggested I would EVENTUALLY post more photos and tie up some loose ends. One of them was of this black pine that took me a long day of wiring with a shifted apex (there is an iron rod up in that foliage that you can’t see […]
Japan trip to Shinji Suzuki’s nursery!
Well, I finally got back there… and I brought quite a few photos back with me. So over the next couple of days I’ll run several posts about the week and a half spent at my teacher’s studio: the people, the nursery, the trees I worked on, even the monkeys. Stay tuned for more posts! […]
Yamadori Shimpaku juniper styling
Some years ago this juniper was imported from Japan. It was weak for quite some time and only this year displayed enough energy to make styling an option. The long shoots were cut back once already this year, so I could actually have styled it a bit earlier.
