Some bonsai are born great, others are made. Just because nature – or a nursery – doesn’t provide a tree with graceful lines or dramatic features doesn’t mean that it isn’t destined for greatness. Of course some trees are best left alone. Which is what many thought when they walked past the juniper pictured below. […]
Search Results for: juniper
Preparing a display
A few weeks after this year’s BIB exhibit in January, I started thinking hard about what trees to display in 2010. Depending on the work a tree needs, twelve months is not always enough time to prepare it for exhibit. I’d been thinking about showing a large Sierra juniper or a large corkbark Japanese black […]
Singleleaf ash
While hiking around Moab looking for Utah junipers, Konnor and I came across a number of neat deciduous trees I was not familiar with. My favorite was the singleleaf ash, Fraxinus anomala. The species, a member of the olive family, is an anomoly among ash because it has a single rather than a compound leaf. […]
Pinyon pines
Last weekend Konnor Jenson and I visited Moab, Utah, to scout for junipers. As both of us have a deep appreciation for pines, we found – to no one’s surprise – pines! Pinyon pines have a number of characteristics that are great for bonsai. The needles are small, the branches are nimble, and when grown […]
Where does the first branch go?
At our last Bay Island Bonsai meeting, Boon had us complete one of my favorite exercises. He passes out a worksheet with the trunks of trees and has us draw in the primary branches and the outline of the tree. Pine, Pine, Azalea, Pine? It’s a super exercise that forces one to think about what […]