A few weeks after this year’s BIB exhibit in January, I started thinking hard about what trees to display in 2010. Depending on the work a tree needs, twelve months is not always enough time to prepare it for exhibit. I’d been thinking about showing a large Sierra juniper or a large corkbark Japanese black […]
Search Results for: pine
Learning the art of bonsai display
Two things define Bay Island Bonsai’s monthly meetings for me – Boon’s talks and practice displays. Sure, we get to see videos and slide shows, practice evaluating trees and complete various bonsai-related exercises, but the core of our bonsai theory is expressed through the talks and practice displays. We end each meeting by providing BIB […]
Sizing up candles
You’ve seen the pictures in the books and magazines. Before decandling your Japanese black pines, divide the new growth into four categories of differing vigor. Below that simple instruction one will find a photo that resembles the following: Spring growth as reported by the mainstream bonsai media Actual spring growth Our trees, however, tend to […]
Visitation rights
I recently had the opportunity to visit a few of the pines I started 15 years ago that are no longer in my collection. I was happy to see that they are doing very well. It’s exciting to give a tree its start and then see how others develop and refine it. The result is […]
Of candles and cones
Looking across my benches last week I was struck by the very different speeds at which my pines were opening up. The differences seemed larger than usual this year. And I can’t blame pot size, fertilizer or the weather – not for the most part anyway. The majority of my five-year-old pines had candles and […]