Spring is a busy time for keeping after refined Japanese maples. In order to keep internodes short, I pinch new shoots as soon as they emerge. Shohin Japanese maple – 6.5″ tall, 13″ wide Because the buds open at different times, I check this tree daily to see if there are new shoots to pinch. […]
Japanese maple
Japanese maple bonsai – working from a sub-optimal starting point
This past winter, I received a number of Japanese maples with good roots but no movement or taper whatsoever. I wasn’t sure what to do with them, so I considered my options. I figured I could: give them away develop them for landscape material destroy them, or make a big cut and start from scratch […]
Cutting back a Japanese maple
I’ve been working for the last few years on a Japanese maple my mother collected as a seedling. The last time I worked on the tree, I removed a couple of large branches. Since then, the tree has grown freely to help heal the scars. Japanese maple Now that some of the new sacrifice branches […]
Mr. Fukunaga’s maples
Mr. Fukunaga has been growing bonsai for a long time. He gave most of the trees in his garden their start which is really something considering how far along they are. His deciduous collection features a number of different varieties including hornbeam and trident maple as well as some of the less common varieties like […]
A Japanese maple grove
After nursing a handful of young Japanese maples back to health, I decided to plant them all in the same pot to create a small grove planting. I started by selecting a shallow pot and adding lots of wires. The pot from below Plenty of wires Using lots of wires is useful for creating groves […]