Vine Maple ‘Boot’ Revisit-
This composition is from March 2015. We had it in the studio for our annual fall trim and thought it might be fun to compare it with the original styling. I’d intended this one to be a bit…awkward. Many paintings, sculpture, or other art I enjoy looking at again and again often have an element […]
Trident Forest Re-imagining—
Several years ago I came across this older trident forest being sold at a bonsai nursery, and was interested in its relaxed, natural-looking lines. The trunks all looked about the same size, roughly, and I suspected we’d be fiddling with it some day to correct that. Earlier this spring we finally got around to correcting […]
The Blaze of Autumn Sweetly Burns
…with a title like that you’d think I was lost in a poem by Tennyson. But I was only looking at a tree in my yard. I tend to photograph this Red Maple, Acer rubrum, at this time of year. It was created by Anne Spencer, one of our talented Portland, Oregon artists who passed […]
Repotting Tip ‘O the Month-
Many trees like their roots far away from anything saturated, which is the bottom of the pot. Two in particular, pines and azaleas. And in muddling about the Western bonsai world I’ve been haunted by the number of pines planted in very shallow containers. ‘Rules’ are slippery things, as anything in bonsai has exceptions. So […]
Vine Maple… Tower… Experiment?
I had no idea how to title this one. Just as I had no idea, really, what exactly I was doing with my March Seasonal students the day we put this thing together. Which must instill a lot of confidence in my students. Seasonal veterans are familiar with me taking a left turn sometimes. But […]
Apprentice Jorge Trak and the Trident-
I’ll keep this photo essay short on words and long on images: Jorge Trak studied repotting techniques in February. We covered a lot more trees than I show here, but this Trident was one of the better documented of those we did photograph…
Michael Hagedorn 