If you have a lot of bonsai, you might feel like you’re doing assembly line work at certain times of the year. Summer, for those with a number of black pines, is one of those times. When I have a lot of repetitive work, I often line up a group of trees against the workshop wall, start […]
Search Results for: sacrifice branch
Cutting back a Japanese maple
I’ve been working for the last few years on a Japanese maple my mother collected as a seedling. The last time I worked on the tree, I removed a couple of large branches. Since then, the tree has grown freely to help heal the scars. Japanese maple Now that some of the new sacrifice branches […]
Redirecting growth on pines
Decandling and cutback are great techniques for redirecting growth on black pines. Here are some examples. Tree #1 After eleven years, the trunk of the tree below has reached the desired size. Any further significant growth and the curves would begin to disappear. The goal for this stage of development is to reduce investment in […]
Visit to Telperion Farms
Plants love Oregon – 100 wholesale nurseries can’t be wrong. Many of these nurseries focus on conifers – and at least one grows bonsai exclusively: Telperion Farms. Chris and Lisa Kirk started Telperion Farms on 100 acres east of Salem, Oregon. Numerous growing fields support pines, maples and junipers while less common varieties including hornbeam, quince and […]
Decandling black pine – case study
It’s common to divide a tree’s shoots into three zones based on strength during decandling season. A long-term project of mine had me dividing a tree into three zones for very different reasons. Japanese black pine – after decandling The lowest third of this sixteen year-old Japanese black pine is beginning to develop branches that […]