~ Beginnings are Delicate Things ~
There’s an old craftsperson axiom that goes, ‘If you have problems at the end it’s probably because of something you did at the beginning’. This past year I’ve shared a series of posts about early tree development. If there is one overarching, umbrella statement we can make regarding the early phase of bonsai creation—both deciduous […]
Deciduous Early Development Part V: Styrax
This Styrax is still a pre-bonsai. A tree ‘on the way to find out’. Nibbling away at it as one might on a mature bonsai will keep pre-bonsai development to a standstill. For pre-bonsai, particularly a larger tree, our goal is to create the tree’s structure—the primary gestures and proportions—in a big flat or nursery […]
Deciduous Early Development Part IV: Studying Old Styrax
When talking about early development, eventually we need to look at later development, just to see where we’re going. Many of the old deciduous bonsai in Japan were grown in containers. They weren’t collected, and many weren’t grown in the ground. In general we tend to have less focus in the West on pot-grown bonsai. By pot-grown, […]
Deciduous Early Development Part I: Japanese Maple
The first part of this development series covers a few gangly specimens of Japanese Maple. Japanese Maple is one of the most challenging early development deciduous trees because of its propensity to make long internodes. It’s also one of the best examples of a theme that runs throughout the next few posts on early development, […]
When Can We Claim Deciduous Bonsai As Our Own?
“Whose work is it?” is a question often asked by those who go to bonsai shows. Both conifer and deciduous bonsai will have answers to that question, but how that computation is made differs significantly. It is maybe easiest to understand how deciduous work is different by contrasting it with that of conifers. In most […]
Young Winter Hazel Structural Design—
Although we create a lot of deciduous bonsai here, embarrassingly few of them show up on this blog. I’ll endeavor to include more of them down the road. One of the enticing challenges of deciduous bonsai is seeing the future tree in the young twigs in front of you. The process is so long that […]
Old Historical Catlin Elm-
This is an antique tree created by one of our great California bonsai masters Mas Ishii. His son Gary Ishii is now proprietor of their family nursery Chikugo-en in Los Angeles. A client of mine found this unusual Catlin elm, which had been grown from a cutting by Mas about 50 years ago. It’s a modest […]
When to Take Off Japanese Maple Leaves in the Fall?
This is a tangly question…there’s what’s best for the tree, and there’s what we might want to do because fall leaves are rather nice looking. For Japanese Maple, the fall color is often the most eye-catching thing in the yard. We want to see it for a while. But, if we wait until the leaves […]
How to Avoid Burned Leaves on Deciduous Bonsai
Preventing burned leaves on deciduous trees in the summer involves two things: 1. We need a lot of fine roots. 2. We need to water frequently. Let’s break that down a bit. If we don’t have a lot of fine roots, it won’t matter how much we water because few roots won’t be able to support the water […]
Michael Hagedorn 