Happy New Year! I’d like to kick things off by sharing the story of how The Little Book of Bonsai came to be. Two years ago, I received a note from the gardening editor at Ten Speed Press, a division of Penguin Random House in New York. They were interested in publishing a book about […]
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Bonsai Tonight features how-to articles, tips on growing trees from scratch, and reports from exhibits in the U.S. and Japan. See the Complete Post Archive for a list of all posts, or start browsing recent posts below.
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How to grow Japanese black pine from seed
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Recent Posts
Developing grafted cork-bark pines
Two years ago I received a note from Pete in Virginia about his work grafting dwarf and cork-bark black pines. He was curious if his grafting was appropriate for bonsai so he sent me some samples to evaluate. I’ve enjoyed working with these trees and would like to share some notes about each. They are […]
Refining a young root over rock black pine
I’ve been working on a root over rock black pine for the past two years. The tree was created by Eric Schrader (phutu.com) and is thirteen years old. Root over rock black pine The basic branches are set, but need refinement, and the new apex needs to thicken. To improve the branch structure, I thinned […]
Cutting back and wiring a young cascade pine
Some of my cascade black pines are almost six years old. Black pine pre-bonsai Now that the basic curves are set, the main focus is to improve the branch structure. I do this by cutting back to two branches per intersection. After cutback It’s much easier to wire trees that have recently been thinned, so […]
Setting design goals for refining mature bonsai
On Tuesday, I posted an update showing fall work on a cork-bark black pine (see “Cutback” for details). Today I’d like to critique the tree and talk about design goals for future development. For reference, here’s the tree after thinning the foliage and wiring key branches. Cork-bark black pine in a Gyozan pot – 24″ […]