Spring is a great time for defoliation – the removal of leaves from deciduous bonsai. As defoliation is very stressful for trees, it’s only for healthy specimens that respond well to the procedure. I’ve learned from past experience that fully defoliating my Korean hornbeam can lead to dieback of weak, interior shoots. Now I partially […]
Defoliating
Defoliating a Korean hornbeam – part 2
On May 6, 2012, I defoliated my Korean hornbeam. Here is what it looked like after removing the leaves. Defoliated – May 6 (the few leaves in back belong to an escape branch) One of my main goals for defoliating the tree was to expose the interior buds to more light (see Decandling a Korean […]
Defoliating a Korean hornbeam
I’ve been defoliating and partially defoliating my bonsai for years – particularly my trident maple bonsai. Somewhere along the line I picked up a Korean hornbeam, but this tree I didn’t defoliate. I hesitated the first several years because I was working on developing basic branch structure. I hesitated the last few years our of […]