Generating new shoots on Japanese black pines is easy. If a healthy tree is pruned, you can expect lots of new growth. Over time, however, crowded shoots can prevent light from reaching the tree’s interior. When this happens, the interior shoots we rely on for future primary branches can die off. The best way to […]
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New book showcases bonsai and penjing at the Montréal Botanical Garden
Bonsai | Penjing: The Collections of the Montréal Botanical Garden by Danielle Ouellet. $71.95 in hardcover from Goose Lane Editions. 276 pages. I was excited to find a note from Goose Lane Editions a few weeks ago announcing the publication of Bonsai | Penjing: The Collections of the Montréal Botanical Garden, by Danielle Ouellet. A […]
Homing in on the ideal environment for satsuki azaleas
A few months ago, two satsuki professionals visited my garden. The weather was unseasonably warm when they arrived – it reached 102, an unusual high for June – and they were worried I wasn’t watering my azaleas enough. They repeatedly stressed that azaleas don’t do well when they dry out or when it gets too […]
Tips for applying liquid fertilizer
Liquid fertilizer is a great way to provide nutrition for your bonsai. I’ve been using fish-based fertilizers for years and although it’s smelly, it’s effective and offers control when I want to limit how much fertilizer each tree gets. Fish emulsion While it’s easy to dilute concentrated fertilizer and apply it to your bonsai, there […]
Summer watering tip
Have you ever found that some trees dry out a lot faster than others this time of year? It happens a lot in my garden, on old trees and young trees alike. One thing that can cause this is not watering thoroughly. Sometimes, I’ll water a tree three or four times only to dig down […]