For the past five years I’ve been working to rehabilitate a semi-cascade coast live oak. Now that the tree is healthy, the silhouette is filling in quickly. Here’s the tree after cutback and wiring last summer (see “Rehabilitating a coast live oak – part 2” for details). Coast live oak – July 2021 And here’s […]
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Young pine work with John Eads
Earlier this year I spent a week working on young pines with John Eads of Left Coast Bonsai. We pruned and/or wired almost every young pine in my garden to give us a chance to review the approach for trees at different stages of development. For some of the younger trees, the work was simple. […]
Mid-repotting report: Japanese red pine
This week I finally got around to repotting a red pine forest that hadn’t been worked on in a while. Midway through, I paused to take note of the different techniques I was using to do the work. Midway through the repot I’d started by combing out the mat of roots growing along the bottom […]
How your club can support the Pacific Bonsai Expo
I’ve received questions from clubs in recent weeks about what they can do to support the Pacific Bonsai Expo this fall. They’re excited about the event and they want to help! As part of documenting the process of how the event is coming together, I thought I’d share suggestions for how bonsai clubs can support […]
Four-year progression: making a shimpaku juniper from graft
In spring of 2018, I picked up a prostrata juniper from Kenji Miyata. The branches were long and the foliage was course but I liked the curves in the lower trunk. It was a perfect candidate for grafting. I made one graft using itoigawa shimpaku foliage and spent the next three years reducing the original […]