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 […]
Search Results for: pine
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 […]
Highlights from the 6th U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition
On September 8th and 9th, William N. Valavanis hosted the 6th U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition in Rochester, New York. It was an awesome event. The exhibit featured over 300 bonsai – an impressive feat considering the quality of the trees – demonstrations by Taiga Urushibata, Lindsay Bebb, and Mauro Stemberger, plus lectures, critiques, and the […]
Highlights from the Northwest Bonsai Rendezvous exhibit
The Bonsai Society of Portland and Pacific Northwest Bonsai Clubs Association presented the 2018 Northwest Bonsai Rendezvous this month in Milwaukie, Oregon. The event was a big success! Three days of workshops, critiques, and demonstrations made the time fly by. Just steps away, a high quality exhibition featured some of the region’s best trees. Here […]
Summer fertilizing
There are a number of good reasons to fertilize bonsai in summer: The tree is young and the goal is to thicken the trunk The tree requires nutrition to recover from – or prepare for – defoliation and decandling The growing season is short and waiting until fall to fertilize is too late As I have […]