About a year ago, I passed a juniper in my garden that had filled in over the previous growing season. It was a good time to remove the old foliage, so I made a mental note to thin the tree. A full year later, I still hadn’t thinned the foliage. And then I noticed that […]
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Spring cutback on Chinese quince
Last December, I decided to take a big step to improve the branch structure on a Chinese quince. I cut off most of the branches. The tree was fairly ramified, but the size and arrangement of the branches didn’t convey the gnarly character that I associate with quince bonsai. The remedy, although severe, is the […]
Kinsai satsuki azalea
‘Kinsai’ is a popular satsuki azalea cultivar. The flowers are red and the petals are narrow. Mostly. There are a few different variations of kinsai (pink flowers, wide petals, etc.), and there can be considerable variation among the flowers on a single tree. You can see this on the specimen below that has started to […]
Spring deciduous work: stewartia
For the last few years, I’ve been working to increase the health and vigor of a stewartia bonsai. As of this year, the tree is strong enough for regular spring maintenance – cutback and leaf pruning. As you can see in the photo below, the tree’s large leaves shade out the interior branches. If I […]
Grafting follow-up – reducing the original foliage
Two years ago I grafted a prostrata juniper with itoigawa foliage (see “Side-veneer graft aftercare” for details). Since then, I’ve been incrementally reducing the original foliage. Here’s a photo of the tree eight months after making the graft. October, 2018 I repotted the tree the following spring. A few months later, I removed the branches […]