Bonsai Tonight

An educational website about bonsai development

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Make Beautiful Bonsai

Make Beautiful Bonsai

Bonsai Tonight is the website of bonsai teacher and writer Jonas Dupuich.
What can you find here? A blog, an online store, and information for bonsai enthusiasts of all levels.

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Learn new techniques and enjoy photos of beautiful trees in over 900 posts from around the world.

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Recent Posts

Removing wire from an old grafted Shimpaku

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If you haven’t checked the wired trees in your garden to see if any wire is cutting in, now’s a good time to do so.

I often wire a lot of trees over winter or in early spring and by this time of year a lot of the wires have started to cut in. This is more of a concern for deciduous varieties and young trees that are growing quickly, but it applies to conifers and older specimens as well.

The juniper below was wired over two years ago.

Shimpaku grafted on California juniper

It’s been growing slowly as the tree was stressed a few years ago and has yet to fully recover. It has, however, produced a lot of small new shoots this year that have caused some branches to swell.

Snug wires

Wires just starting to cut in

I typically let the wires cut in a bit on conifers before removing them as this helps the bends to set, but because I want this tree to gain vigor, I removed all of the wires.

After removing the wire

The tree looks about the same now as it did before removing the wire as the branches have set well. I don’t plan to wire the tree again until I see some runners extending beyond the silhouette of the tree. If the root growth has been good, I’d expect to see some of this by the end of the year. And at that rate the tree would be ready for wiring in just over a year.

Tune in Friday for more about juniper health and summer watering.

Bringing new trees into the garden: coast redwood

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One thing I like to do when I bring new trees into the garden is to give them a close look. I don’t always stop to appreciate all of a tree’s good or bad points when I’m shopping so I try to take the time once the trees come to the garden.

I also like to check for pests, dieback, and discolored foliage, if any, to try to get a better sense of the health of the tree. This way I can have a baseline understanding of what care the tree will need going forward.

I recently acquired some collected redwoods from Mendocino Coast Bonsai where Bob Shimon maintains a great selection of oaks, Sierra junipers, and coast redwoods. The trees were covered with new shoots, including a number that sprouted from the ground near the base of the trunk.

Coast redwood

To get a better view of the trunk, I removed some of these low shoots.

After removing the low shoots

Trunk detail

One fun thing about redwood bonsai is that some specimens look like miniature trees while others look like small trees with fast taper and interesting deadwood. The tree above fits into the latter category. I’ll look to shape it in the form of a bonsai rather than a miniature version of a giant tree.

The tree below evokes fallen and half-rotten logs with sprouts throughout. I’ll try to preserve this look when it’s time for styling.

New shoots emerging from the trunk

I have a couple of options for the tree below. The base is large but there’s less deadwood so I may look to style this as a taller tree, depending on how many new shoots I have to work with on the upper section of the trunk. If new shoots don’t appear, I can reduce the trunk and aim for a more compact design.

Coast redwood with low shoots

The largest tree I picked up will be left tall. Although there is a large trunk and some deadwood, I like the idea of preserving several trunks that suggest more of a forest scene.

Multi-trunk redwood

Because these trees had been growing near the cost where the weather is cool, I’ve placed them under shade cloth to avoid burning the leaves. I plan to move them to a sunnier spot once the foliage is more used to the increased light. I’ll then look to repot the trees this fall or winter.