Plants love Oregon – 100 wholesale nurseries can’t be wrong. Many of these nurseries focus on conifers – and at least one grows bonsai exclusively: Telperion Farms. Chris and Lisa Kirk started Telperion Farms on 100 acres east of Salem, Oregon. Numerous growing fields support pines, maples and junipers while less common varieties including hornbeam, quince and […]
Search Results for: sacrifice branch
Decandling black pine – case study
It’s common to divide a tree’s shoots into three zones based on strength during decandling season. A long-term project of mine had me dividing a tree into three zones for very different reasons. Japanese black pine – after decandling The lowest third of this sixteen year-old Japanese black pine is beginning to develop branches that […]
Utah juniper
Utah juniper, Juniperous osteosperma, is a desert tree or shrub found throughout the southwest. The Utah can survive extreme heat with very little water and live for hundreds of years. In particularly dry years they sacrifice branches to conserve moisture. When further stressed by wind or inhospitable soil, Utah junipers twist and bend as they […]
Coast redwood development update
Three years ago, I wired a shoot on a coast redwood to create a new trunk on a multi-trunk composition (see “Coast redwood cutback” for details). The shoot grew well, and it’s now time to cut it back. Coast redwood – before cutback After cutback – 31″ to the top of the cone-shaped trunk The […]
Cut it here – my start in bonsai
“Cut it here,” he said. I was working at the family business, a retail nursery in Alameda, California. It was 1993. A man I had not met before was offering me pruning advice, and the advice was good. “Cut it here,” he said again, pointing to another branch. The man had a long name – Boonyarat […]