After growing a trunk to the desired size, the next step is creating primary branches. And the bigger the trunk, the bigger we can expect these branches to be. The main challenge is that most trees want to invest resources in the upper branches as they receive the most light. If we let upper branches […]
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.
Pruning shohin olive
Summer is a good time to prune olive bonsai. By pruning when the weather is warm, I can expect olives to produce new growth until the weather cools in fall. For two small shohin, cutback consisted of reducing long shoots and pruning to silhouette. Here’s what this looked like. Shohin olive – before pruning After […]
Summer pruning young deciduous trees
It’s been a while since I last pruned some young quince and crabapples I’ve been growing from seed. By pruning in summer I can encourage them to produce new growth that I can wire in fall. Here’s a six-year old crabapple that I’m growing to be a shohin-sized tree. Siebold’s crab The trunk is close […]
Decandling field-grown black pines
One of the most fun stages of development is when the trunk has reached the desired size and the focus switches to improving branch density. The black pine below was field-grown at Lone Pine Gardens in Sebastopol, California. For the past few years I’ve been slowing the tree down in an effort to develop shorter […]
Bonsai Development Series #26: Focusing growth in a single sacrifice branch
For the last few years I’ve been pruning my young pines down to a single sacrifice branch. This slows growth but allows me to fit more trees on the bench. Decandling time is a good time to do this work because it gives me the opportunity to slow down branches that are gaining too much […]