This small trident maple is from Muranaka Bonsai Nursery. It is in a rather weird “C” shape. Part of that is no doubt due to canting in the pot when dug from the field. The roots shows the previous soil line and though the root is exposed it offeres a nice counter balance to the C shape trunk. A small rounded canopy will be worked on this summer thru selective pruning.
This small elm is from Muranaka Bonsai Nursery. The trunk is formed using the embedded wire method of obtaining larger trunked small specimens faster. The corking is well formed and the taper is really nice. A small bunjin type canopy with a verticle drop branch is the future.
Elms were allowed to grow out and then they received the first wire this week. All I have done so far is prune out the leaders for taper and chosen which branches will be retained and grown on. A group for an upright part of the crown and then the cascadeing part which will be kept rather short.
I had my friend Gerry in the garden today for our regular bonsai get together. It was the hottest day of the year so far and with the trees growing like wildfire there was plenty of maintenance needed.
This is Gerry’s shohin juniper rigida, a very vigorous little tree, which was needing to be trimmed back into shape.
This is how it looked before todays’ work.
And this is how it looked after the work. We will probably re-plant this into a small round pot in the next week or 2.
This Chinese juniper also needed a trim
Thinned out to allow light into the interior. We are only at the start of the growing season here and this tree will put on a lot more growth before its over. It will need to be thinned again and fully re-wired towards the end of the season.
I even manage to…
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I have spent some time this week working on trees that were either air layered in the recent years or required to be air layered to improve he trunk line or the nebari.
I have had mixed success with this procedure in the past. Most of my failures were due to poor technique, a lack of experience or my own impatience. I have decided that this year I will attempt a lot of air layers to improve my technique and increase my knowledge and experience on a wider range of species.
This little hawthorn, which didn’t have many roots when it was separated last year is looking very strong at the moment. Planting it deep in a clay training pot appears to have paid off with lots of new top growth. I will leave it in this pot for another year and take a look at the roots again next year. The post…
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Before the workshop
With a little bit of help from my friends
Our bonsai club organised it’s first all day workshops this year and I attended one earlier this month and took along a couple of trees to work on. The advice from the two club ‘elders’ Ade and Roger was really worthwhile. Some of the work was what I always thought needed doing, all I needed was the encouragement to take what seemed like very drastic steps and how to do it properly, other work was the result of someone seeing my trees with a fresh eye and pointing out a new direction I might consider taking with a tree.
Link to Ade’s notes on the workshop April 2016 workshop
Two hours later
Inspired by Robert Nocher’s recent posting on his site I have tackled an air layering of a Cottoneaster Franchetii that happens to be in our garden, not the…
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