Design Tweak For A Bunjin-
When our trees get out of shape and gangly they give us the opportunity to see them again. When a client brought in this Lodgepole Pine that he’d collected, it looked ripe for a tweak. ‘Integration’ is a word we throw around a lot in bonsai. And it’s an important design word. Generally what we […]
Shore Pine From Telperion Farms Styled-
Many of you know that the pre-bonsai business Telperion Farms was lost to the western fires this summer. They leave a hole in our community that still brings us sorrow. The trees they shipped went everywhere over the years, a friend said he’d received some in Puerto Rico. Many were brought to my backyard by […]
Squatty Limber Pine Styling-
Nearly 10 years ago I found this Limber Pine sitting at the intersection of three cracks in solid granite. The chunks of silvered wood you see as ‘wings’ on either side of the lower trunk, with air under them, are the remains of the original root system that ran down two cracks. The space underneath […]
Restyling a Historic Ponderosa (in a Metal Pot) –
Years ago a friend dropped off an old brake drum, an old rusted thing from a car, and said ‘Put something in that’. I was pretty amused and said I would, and yet it’s taken me a while to find something worthy of it. We finally did, this spring, and it was the first time […]
What’s Wrong Here? A Blog Quiz-
If you see a pine with lushly growing moss on top of the soil media, like the one below, alarm bells should be going off. As pines generally don’t like overly wet soil media, lush moss is a lucky clue to adjust your pine care. And if things are really soggy, you might even see algae […]
2,520 Degree Ponderosa Pine
Two years ago I collected this Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) with Backcountry Bonsai. It was tucked under a full sized tree, somehow eking out a very long life. Seven full rotations is 2,520 degrees of twist around the trunk…a bit of an eye boggler. It lay prostrate and un-inspiringly in its box until this fall when […]
Limber Pine First Styling-
Those of you following the threads surrounding the publication of Bonsai Heresy have maybe also noticed a lag in posts this month. With relief I can report the book is off to the designer and my duties are downgraded to thumbs up or thumbs down for a few weeks. In the interim we styled a […]
New Design for an Awarded Ponderosa Pine-
This bunjin pine won the Ben Oki award years ago, and then showed up on the cover of Bonsai Clubs International in 1992. The two and a half decades since, under the stewardship of several owners, have proven that Ponderosa does eventually ramify. In the last few years, however, the lower branch has weakened—made worse […]
‘Stampede’ Ponderosa Pine Styling…
There’s a story about the name ‘Stampede’. The Backcountry Bonsai guys enjoy naming the trees they collect, and having received several with memorable names I asked if this Ponderosa Pine had one. I only got an abbreviated version by text and maybe not the full story, but I gather it involved some galloping extraterrestrials or horned […]
Red Pine / Ponderosa on Rock-
One of the bonsai benefits of living in the volcanic Pacific Northwest of the U.S. is the geology. There are many dark, irregular rocks out there for rock plantings. This pine was originally a Ponderosa, Pinus ponderosa. About seven years ago I grafted it with Red Pine, Pinus densiflora. This spring we were casting about […]
