For years, I’ve spotted unhealthy shoots on black and red pines and wondered about the cause. Unhealthy foliage on black pine The main symptoms are discoloration – primarily yellow foliage – and deformed needles. The problem affects young trees and old trees alike. On more refined trees, I see short, twisty, needles like in the […]
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Cutback on winter jasmine
Winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum) is a deciduous shrub. Unlike trees that have specific branch patterns, winter jasmine produce shoots that emerge in all directions. Winter jasmine They are appreciated for their yellow flowers – flowers that open at the end of winter before the new leaves emerge (hence the name “nudiflorum”). The specimen above was […]
Bonsai Development Series #17: Thin foliage to preserve interior shoots
Generating new shoots on Japanese black pines is easy. If a healthy tree is pruned, you can expect lots of new growth. Over time, however, crowded shoots can prevent light from reaching the tree’s interior. When this happens, the interior shoots we rely on for future primary branches can die off. The best way to […]
New book showcases bonsai and penjing at the Montréal Botanical Garden
Bonsai | Penjing: The Collections of the Montréal Botanical Garden by Danielle Ouellet. $71.95 in hardcover from Goose Lane Editions. 276 pages. I was excited to find a note from Goose Lane Editions a few weeks ago announcing the publication of Bonsai | Penjing: The Collections of the Montréal Botanical Garden, by Danielle Ouellet. A […]
Homing in on the ideal environment for satsuki azaleas
A few months ago, two satsuki professionals visited my garden. The weather was unseasonably warm when they arrived – it reached 102, an unusual high for June – and they were worried I wasn’t watering my azaleas enough. They repeatedly stressed that azaleas don’t do well when they dry out or when it gets too […]