Now is a great time to remove any foliage that’s still clinging to your deciduous bonsai that go dormant in winter. While deciduous leaves typically fall off on their own, not all varieties let go so easily. If you still see leaves on your deciduous bonsai – and you live in the northern hemisphere – […]
Korean hornbeam
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 […]
Korean hornbeam – summer work
Korean hornbeam can grow dense with little effort. To encourage interior shoots, I need to thin the foliage. I do this by cutting new shoots back to 2-4 leaves and completely removing extraneous shoots from overly dense areas. Korean hornbeam – July, 2011 After removing the unnecessary leaves, I decided to lower a few of […]
Cutback – Korean hornbeam
An important theme in bonsai: to develop or maintain a tree of a given size, we need healthy interior shoots. Without interior shoots, we have few options during cutback. Now that the sun is appearing with some regularity in Northern California – and some timidity as it’s still cool – bonsai are beginning to grow quickly. […]