If you’ve been to a bonsai exhibit in Japan or flipped though a Japanese exhibit book, you’ve likely seen accent plants featuring pyrrosia, an epiphytic fern. Accent featuring pyrrosia at the 2011 Gomangoku exhibition in Okazaki, Japan Although there are close to one hundred species of pyrrosia, many used for bonsai are cultivars of Pyrrosia […]
Bonsai Blog
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Crabapple update – focus on developing the trunk
Last year I wired and repotted a group of crabapples from 2″ pots to 4″ pots. As the shapes of the lower trunks are set, the goal this year is to thicken the trunks. To facilitate this, I’ve left last year’s sacrifice branches in place and moved the trees into one gallon cans. Young crabapple […]
Western juniper on a rock
Instead of sharing photos of the different pots I tried out for a Western juniper, I thought I’d cut to the chase and show the final selection. Western juniper – 24″ After setting the tree in six different containers, I found that none provided additional interest to the composition. I had a few lava rocks […]
Rehabilitating a Coast live oak
Two years ago a coast live oak I’d been fond of for many years came into my collection. Coast live oak – January 2017 I’d enjoyed watching the tree develop over the years and was looking forward to working on it. Before getting started, however, I repotted the tree to get a look at the […]
Reducing branches on coast live oak – follow-up
It didn’t take long for new buds to appear after dramatically pruning some coast live oaks last month (see Oaks for details). Here’s a photo of new bud development ten days after cutback. Signs of new growth on Coast live oak – 8″ Close up of new buds When new buds appear in places where […]
