Maros Bonsai Blog

Tlila cordata in April dynamic

Pictures are taken just six days apart. That's dramatic change. Power of the nature in its essence. Love this green color of new foliage. Check pictures form last week where buds were still closed. Tree will soon reach stage when new foliage will mercifully hide all our mistakes in structure. :)

Carpinus betulus No.11 "The Yossarian" turning green

April is fantastic. You can go out every day into garden and watch this dramatic change. That's why I love deciduous trees so much. They keep changing. Unlike many conifers. One day there are buds, next one they start to swell, and you keep watching them like they swell more and more. And then small leaves emerge one day. Their green color is so fresh and healthy. And they grow until they reach final size during next few weeks. For me definitely nicest part of year in my garden.

I took few pictures of "The Yossarian" today. Some of my other hornbeams do not have leaves at all. So he is fast. You still can see structure of the branches but not for long time. In two weeks it will be one green mass. But honestly, real quality of deciduous bonsai can be seen when leaves are off.

Ulmus minor bonsai first styling

During last few days I finished first styling of this Elm bonsai tree. Tree is yamadori and was collected from wild in 2013, I guess. My friends Vincent and Lubos helped me with its collection. As is clear from pictures tree is rather big, actually it is around maximum size for "one man" bonsai in my garden. I'm still able to lift it and move it around, but I do not like doing it, and honestly try to avoid doing so as much as possible.

May be this is the reason I did not find any earlier pictures of the tree, which is quite unusual in my case. Just for clarification, tree as collected two years ago and was just double trunk with no branches. All current branch structure grown during last two years.

So I did initial styling of the tree and gave branches basic direction. Tree is growing very vigorously and I expect ramification to develop fast. Trunk is covered with moss so I'm trying to remove it with Biotreecleaner which I have from Walter Pall. Moss is so strong that I have to repeat the procedure in next few days.

I'm happy with this tree so far. Nebari is great and bark is nice. Tree obviously lack decent taper and I think it will need much more carving work in upper part of the trunk. I will report on progress.

First season in my garden I found this holes. Some bug was inside and was eating it. I sealed him in and he stopd doing mess with my tree.

Nebari is not bad at all.

Prunus spinosa No.1

Tree is shooting new leaves and this spring I'm lucky guy, it has some flowers too. Unfortunately they are badly visible on white background. If you look closely enough they are on bottom left branch on the picture. Few details as proof. Tree was wired during the winter as can be seen on February post here. Quite a lot of top growth was removed then, so majority of flower buds went down. Next year I hope for much more flowers on much denser crown. We will see.

Betula pendula No.2

This little bonsai tree was collected from wild forest in April 2012. It was doing quite well since then. As all of my trees it was potted in mixture of zeolite and rough peat. Since first days feed well with Osmocote and organic granulated fertilizers. Regarding design there was few problems, secondary trunk did not sprouted at all so it has to be removed and on its place is small scar. Tertiary trunk is much thinner and from future design point of view is not so good. But I'm pretty sure it can be developed into reasonable second trunk. On top of the tree new shoots sprouted just too low and definitely not according to my optimistic expectation. Therefore large part of dead wood was removed recently and carved into hollow trunk. If everything will go well proportions will change in few years and it will look more natural. Base of the trunk is nice and bark is OK there, nebari is also good and will be more visible when tree will go into training pot in year or two.

April 2015 after some little wiring and carving of dead wood.

June 2012, with lots of fertilizer granules.

May 2012 sprouting

April 2012 just after collection and potting

Betula pendula No.1

Birch made it trough the winter. It is shooting new leaves already. It lost few branches during winter but that's how it is with birches. Moss is dead, I will see if it turns green again or new one will be applied later. According to my experience moss is important in keeping sufficient water amount in pot during hot summer months. Fantastic pot is by Juraj Homola.

Carpinus orientalis restyling

I was not happy with structure of the tree. So I made some major redesign. Apex was removed and tree will be shorter in the future. Few branches were also removed. Whole tree was wired. Now it will shoot new leaves in few days. Top part of the crown must be developed in next few years. I will work on dead wood soon. Challenging tree I would say.

Now after styling

Recently just before restyling

November 2014

June 2011 after first major styling

In August 2010 just after arriving into my garden from my visit at Walter Pall garden.

Acer palmatum after wiring

This is short story of my Acer palmatum. Just few pictures from development and recent result after wiring. Definitely not traditional acer bonsai tree. It has some challenges like unbalanced nebari, big wound at nebari level, wound after big chop, and some others. Basically, complicated tree but I will try to make it onto nice looking natural bonsai. Long way to go, but I can see what is doable, hope it will work. Anyway it will be fun to work with.