Refining old bonsai isn’t always a quick process – especially when the bonsai is a corkbark black pine. With brittle branches, the variety does not lend itself to dramatic restyling. I’ve been fortunate that the pine below has been healthy enough to decandle three years in a row. Many corkbark pines need a year to […]
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.
Witnessed in a recent workshop
I know that life is good when I wake up and have only to attend a bonsai workshop for the day. I’m guaranteed an opportunity to work on my trees, and I’ll get a chance to observe what others are working on around me. Some of these projects are quite intriguing. A few weeks ago, I […]
Big cuts
On my first and only visit to Kihachiro Kamiya’s nursery in 1999, I found Daisaku Nomoto working on a young black pine. It was close to 30 years old, and the tree was beautiful to me; it had a large base and fast taper and was more full than the pines I was used to […]
Refining shohin black pine
Typical fall work for Japanese black pine: remove old wire, remove unnecessary branches and needles, wire remaining branches. This simple process can reveal a lot about a tree. I’d been thinking the shohin black pine below had the basics in place – good primary and secondary branches that could be quickly developed into an attractive […]
Cleaning up a corkbark black pine
The yatsabusa corkbark black pine below is almost 17 years old. I’m primarily growing it as a source for future grafting projects, but it’s become a fun project. I pulled the old needles and removed a few shoots that were growing in dense areas. That should do it for this year. Soon I’ll start fertilizing […]