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 […]
Bonsai Development
Bonsai Development posts form the heart of Bonsai Tonight. Learn about varieties like Black Pine, Shimpaku and Japanese Maple, techniques like Decandling and Grafting and Air Layering, and bonsai features like Deadwood.
Leaf pruning Chinese wisteria – follow-up
The first time I cut back and leaf-pruned a Chinese wisteria, I was curious how it would respond to the work. I knew wisteria can grow well after mid-season cutback, but hadn’t experimented enough to know what to expect. Now that I’m comfortable with the technique, it’s fun to see how quickly wisteria can fill […]
Decandling a mini-size black pine
Although I’ve been growing shohin pines for years, last year I decided to try making mini-size trees around 4″-5″ tall. As most of these pines were over 12″ at decandling time, I did a lot of cutback when I decandled. Here’s an example. Black pine – about seven years old The tree above has a […]
Pruning and repotting an exposed root ficus
It’s been almost one year since I started caring for an exposed root Green Island ficus. I pruned the tree toward the end of summer last year and have been waiting until this year to repot it (see “Cutback and wiring” for photos of last year’s work). Ficus respond best to repotting when the weather […]
Decandling young bunjin pines
A few years ago I came across a batch of slender black pine seedlings from a corkbark parent. They were wired for the first time one year ago and are now ready for decandling. Seedling from corkbark pine I shortened the apex and decandled the remaining branches before removing the old needles. After cutback After […]