Bay Island Bonsai’s 12th annual Exhibit of Fine Bonsai will be held this coming weekend, January 15th and 16th, at the Alameda County Fairgrounds. The exhibit will feature hands-on demonstrations, an expanded vendor area, an auction of high-quality trees, and nearly 100 formally displayed bonsai. Chinese Elm from BIB’s 2010 Exhibit This year’s exhibit also […]
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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 […]
Cutback – Yaupon holly
Maintaining bonsai involves letting trees grow and cutting them back. The greater the vigor of the tree, the greater the need for cutback. Of my small collection, my Yaupon holly gets the most cutback. For the second time this year, the tree made a dramatic change in shape. Before cutback – Fall 2010 After cutback […]