Many people who work a lot with black pine bonsai develop a special relationship with tweezers. Fall, winter, and sometimes spring and summer offer opportunities to remove copious amounts of needles from pine bonsai in later stages of development. I like tweezer work because it leaves pine foliage looking clean and even – balanced, in […]
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Cutback – Korean hornbeam
An important theme in bonsai: to develop or maintain a tree of a given size, we need healthy interior shoots. Without interior shoots, we have few options during cutback. Now that the sun is appearing with some regularity in Northern California – and some timidity as it’s still cool – bonsai are beginning to grow quickly. […]
Fall decandling – thinning new buds
My fall decandling project has been moving along slowly – as expected. After trimming spring growth last October, small buds appeared before the tree slowed down for winter. By March, the buds had begun growing again. Some of the more vigorous branches produced five or six new buds. To keep these areas in check, I […]
Restoring an old Japanese maple
I’d gone several years without a Japanese maple in my collection and I missed working with the variety. It’s hard, however, to find good specimen. I resigned myself to starting a tree from scratch, either by layering nursery stock or by working with an old tree that needed help. A few months ago, I found […]
Restoring a Japanese beech
You never know what you’re going to find when you repot a tree for the first time, or when you finally get around to addressing a tree’s major flaws. The Japanese beech below was due for a reboot. The tree’s owner began by working on the roots. Japanese beech Poor nebari In addition to removing […]