The first time I visited a fall exhibit in Japan, I was struck by the number of fruiting bonsai. Every aisle offered examples of crabapple, princess persimmon, pyracantha, or hawthorn bonsai with colorful fruit. I hadn’t realized what a good opportunity the season was to show off trees with fruit as I hadn’t been exposed […]
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Bonsai Development Series #10: transitioning to a new sacrifice branch
Here’s a six year-old pine with a large sacrifice branch. Six year-old black pine It’s great that the sacrifice branch has grown this much, but it’s getting big relative to the future trunkline. Sacrifice branch Future trunk If I had reduced the sacrifice branch a year or two ago, it would have grown less but […]
Two year progression on a cascade black pine
Two years ago this month, Daisaku Nomoto did a demonstration at the Pacific Northwest Bonsai Clubs Association convention in Olympia, Washington. His helpers were Boon Manakitivipart, Matt Reel and Tyler Sherrod – quite a team! Here’s the finished product. October, 2016 After the demo, I brought the tree home, repotted it in winter, and decandled […]
When to keep old needles on weak branches
Here’s another black pine that’s slowly regaining vigor. There’s plenty of new foliage on the strongest shoots, but many of the weaker branches have just a few new needles each. Old black pine Where there are many new needles, I can remove all of the old the needles. Relatively strong branch After removing the 3rd […]
Rehabilitating a black pine – removing old needles
I’d like to write a few articles this season about fall work for pines, in particular needle-pulling and thinning. I’ll start with a simple example. One of my recently acquired pines was very weak last year. When I repotted it for the first time, I found enough healthy roots to make me think the tree […]