I’ve been hard at work with my trees, now they are beginning to look like proper bonsai. Hard to believe that the bottom one started out a bush with no discernible trunk. Sadly those currant cuttings didn’t make it, I couldn’t get them to take root and they died. No big deal since they were free.
The Potomac Bonsai Association (PBA) hosts an annual show at the US National Arboretum. It’s always a treat to visit the arboretum; regardless of what season it is, the arboretum is always eventful. Every season presents a feature to admire and in some aspect, something to look forward to in the next season. However, when there is a bonsai show, the entire place just glows. The trees there look more amazing, there are certain features of trees that inspires you in a completely different way. The PBA enlisted the help of two pros (Bob Clinton and Todd Stewart) from Garden’s Unlimited to feature their trees and their art and boy was it a spectacle.
I’ve met a lot of new people and some very inspiration and influential folk. I had a few epiphanies that weekend and I’ve realized I’m at a crossroads at my current situation. Aside from my bonsai…
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Through the years, I’ve had several means of recording my bonsai trees. I have an Instagram where I’ve documented my trees by picture; but, not much can be said about it other than snapping a picture of what was “done” to the tree. I’ve tried to post one interesting thing from my collection a day and that proved to be just too much but at the same time, not enough. It made life pretty difficult because there was always something I wanted to show. Not because I wanted to show off rather than to document what I was able to accomplish so I could naturally develop an organic record of all my trees as well as a natural progression of my skills and technique; alas, I couldn’t really go into detail by a picture.
I always ask myself, how do people “know” what to do. How do the artists remember…
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Do you ever have those moments when you learn something new and want to run right out to the garden to apply it? I finally got around to listening to the Asymmetry podcast with Dennis Vojtilla. If you have deciduous bonsai you should give it a listen! Dennis is a deciduous genius and he shares several concrete tips in his interview with Ryan Neil of Bonsai Mirai. Listening made me realize I have several deciduous trees that are due to be cut back.
The one I was able to tend to this evening is a very young plant, so it is hardly a refined specimen, but I thought I’d share it nonetheless.
This Korean Hornbeam, Carpinus coreana, was given to me by Steve Miller as a 2-3 year old seedling a couple of years ago. I guess that makes it only 5 years old. Even in this small…
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Happy belated Fathers-day to all the dad’s out there. Yesterday was a productive day. I spend the day with my family. After all the food, deserts and cake I still found time to work on this Ficus bonsai. I know that I promised that I would share this story with you earlier, but I can only share projects if they get done…
As you can see in the feature photo the tree is wild and has a long way to go. Just some background on the tree. The tree is one of three branches that I removed from a grafted Ficus Gensing tree my wife bought when we first moved into the house where we live now. The Ficus Gensing branches was grafted to this ficus tree and these branches would bud out from the trunk below the gensing branches. The tree has died since then but the tree branches…
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