It would be nice if we could create beautiful bonsai by starting trees from seed or cutting and simply waiting for them to mature. If you’ve tried this approach, you might have found that things don’t always go smoothly. Some care along the way, it turns out, is required to ensure young trees take the […]
Search Results for: juniper
Pruning a field-grown trident maple
When I picked up a field-grown maple to work on a few days ago, I had no idea what the trunk and branches looked like. The tree had grown almost four feet since last year and the foliage was too dense to see through. Trident maple This made pruning difficult as I had to make […]
Watering conifers
I’ve seen signs, recently, that some of trees in my garden are staying too wet. What does this look like? On pines I might see yellow at the base of the needles. On junipers, new shoots may extend too far or mature growth may turn juvenile. In a few cases, I’ve spotted signs of damage […]
Guest post: The story behind Michael Hagedorn’s Bonsai Heresy
By Michael Hagedorn Galileo had more in common with witches than you’d think. He narrowly avoided being tortured and executed by denying thinking thoughts that he really shouldn’t have been thinking in the 17th century, such as the earth revolving around the sun. Those early heretical scientists were a brave lot. I’ve known a few […]
Grafting follow-up – reducing the original foliage
Two years ago I grafted a prostrata juniper with itoigawa foliage (see “Side-veneer graft aftercare” for details). Since then, I’ve been incrementally reducing the original foliage. Here’s a photo of the tree eight months after making the graft. October, 2018 I repotted the tree the following spring. A few months later, I removed the branches […]