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 […]
Japanese maple
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 […]
Removing an air layer
About a year and a half ago, I started an air layer on a Japanese maple (see “Air layering a Japanese maple“). I checked on the layer’s progress the following winter and found that the wound had produced callus but no roots. I reopened the wound to stimulate root growth and by spring a few […]
How to remove leaves from deciduous bonsai
There are a number of ways to remove old leaves from deciduous bonsai. Depending on the variety, branch age or density and how dry the leaves are, I’ll use a combination of fingers, tweezers and my whole hand. The first two examples below are from a Japanese beech. Beech leaves don’t always fall off on […]
Japanese maple air layer – a check up
Last May I started an air layer on an old Japanese maple (see “Air layering a Japanese maple“). Curious if there was any root growth, I opened up the bag in February. There was callus, but no new roots. Japanese maple Good callus, no roots To stimulate the production of new roots, I opened up […]