A few months back I grabbed an armful of juniper branches from the green recycling bin at a Bay Island Bonsai workshop. I’d found both kishu and itoigawa shimapku branches and figured I could use them to make cuttings for grafting roots or branches. Although I’d made cuttings many times before, I wasn’t sure about what […]
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Bonsai pests!
If you had asked me, two weeks ago, if my bonsai were healthy and insect free, I would have said yes. At a glance, they all looked great. Looking closer, however, I discovered that one of my pines looked dirty. Some dirt on the needles – this must mean… Aphids! Aphids are most commonly found […]
Bonsai fertilizer – follow-up
Last month I began using tea bags filled with fertilizer to feed my bonsai. Unfortunately, it only took a few days for me to realize that this technique didn’t work well as implemented. The bags started disappearing immediately. Critters tore through some of the bags and carried others away completely, leaving behind the toothpicks that […]
New hinoki bonsai
I recently picked up a couple of large hinoki cypress with the aim of developing them as bonsai. They seemed healthy and had good sized trunks so I thought they’d warrant the effort. Hinoki cypress – Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Tempelhof’ Adding new trees to my collection never seems overly burdensome. I simply remove a few branches and […]
Omoshiroi red pine forest
“Omoshiroi” means “funny” or “interesting” in Japanese. It can be used to convey respect or mockery – which makes it a useful term for bonsai. During a Bay Island Bonsai workshop hosted by Daisaku Nomoto, I brought in a red pine forest I’d grown from seed. Nomoto found the grove to be omoshiroi. He took […]