For years, I’ve been curious about what it takes to create dense branching on wisteria bonsai. I’ve seen many beautiful specimens that bloom every year, but I don’t see as many that have fine, twiggy branching. One of the first steps in ramifying deciduous bonsai is cutting back to create a compact silhouette. This can […]
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Bare-rooting a trident maple
The first thing I want to do when I acquire a new tree is get a look at the soil. Based on what I found when I started repotting the trident maple below, I decided to bare-root the tree. Trident maple After removing the soil The tree had been well-cared for but was growing in […]
Wiring a large cork oak
The last tree to start growing in my garden each spring is also the largest. It’s a cork oak I acquired from Kenji Miyata. Cork oak I try to cut back and wire my oaks in fall or winter, but I often put this off for the big oak as it typically doesn’t start growing […]
Kokufu 101: shohin
Today I’d like to share a single tip for styling shohin bonsai – focus on branch density. As you look at photos of shohin displayed at this year’s Kokufu exhibit, you’ll notice that all of the trees are full. There’s a good reason for this. Because the trees are displayed in groups, it makes sense […]
Kokufu 101: conifers
You can often tell the species of a tree by its shape. The tree below could be one of three different species – needle juniper, cryptomeria, or hinoki cypress. Looking closer at the foliage,we can see this is a hinoki, a species that’s commonly styled as formal upright bonsai with highly refined branch pads. Formal […]