Wisteria update

Wisteria collected in middle of the May this year seems to be doing well. It survived collecting in not so ideal season. Sprouting from many places. Unfortunately it looks like best part of the trunk did not made it, but it is too early to judge. Any future design will depend on what from original trunk will remain and how new growth will develop. Long way to go for this one, but it is always like this on the beginning with deciduous bonsai. After first winter I will see if we are out from the woods. 

July 2015

May 2015

Tilia cordata No.2

I would like to share with you few pictures of one of my bonsai projects in early stages of development. This tree is kind of rarity in my collection. Why is that? It is not yamadori, not collected from wild. 

Tree is seedling which I got from my uncle as gift from nursery. As tiny pencil thick tree it was plated in the garden of my mother-in-law about 5 years ago. So it is my first field grown stuff in the pot right now. It is about 50 cm tall now and trunk at base is about 7 cm wide. I used to work on this tree just about 2 times a year. As filed grown tree it was growing like hell. 

This is reason why tree has quite a lot of flaws in the structure of the crown. You will see it on one of the future posts when I will be able to make winter pictures with detail pictures of crown structure. It was taken out from ground last year and potted into current plastic pot into mixture of zeolite 4-8 mm fraction and rough peat. When taken out from ground I could see it has nebari which is far from being good. I should have been working on it in earlier stages of development in the ground. Too late now. I see air layering as only viable option for the future. Lesson learned.  I will update you on future progress. 

Current stage of the tree after some editing. 

before quick trimming recently

Carpinus betulus No.13

This hornbeam needed some trimming recently. All excess growth was removed. 

Few new benches

I made few new benches recently. I'm using similar simple DIY construction for some time already. But I chose larch wood for recent pair, I used to work with spruce timber previously. Surface is treated with oil only so I'm curious how it will last. 

Tilia cordata

Tree was slightly trimmed lately and now it is in presentable shape. Few pictures before and after as usual. 

Acer palmatum

This maple bonsai in its early development phase was slightly overgrown. All shoots were shortened and few too big leaves were removed. Shortly few new guy wires will be applied to bring top branches in better positions. 

Carpinus betulus "Rusnak" after trimming

Quercus pubescens No.7 with new foliage

Tree was defoliated month ago. Those are pictures from today with nice tiny fresh foliage. 

Betula No.3

I was asked by one of my bonsai friends to post few update pictures of this little birch write few words about development. It was collected back in spring 2012. With such material development is usually slow, in my opinion. 

You have to grow completely new branches from scratch and even more importantly you have to grow new apex of the yamadori tree. Growing new apex is obviously not easy task with fat collected trees. Creating convincing transition between original trunk and new leader is lengthy process. You can do it with growing massive sacrifice branches on selected leader. This takes a lot of foliage to generate enough energy to thicken leader to desirable width. If you decide to stop growing sacrifice branches too early you will fail to create decent transition. You can find too many such trees on various forums or exhibitions. This mistake is hardly possible to repair later. 

Similar approach has to be applied when you want to build nicely tapering branches on the tree. This method requires rater big root ball and is not possible to do it quickly and effectively in small bonsai pot. You have to accept that tree looks bushy most of the time, with huge leaves and long shoots. It is hard to resist the temptation of cutting crown back to nice shape. Obviously there is long way ahead of us in development if this tree. 

Summer 2015, tree in current stage of development. 

Trunk chop without final dead wood work. Excess wood was removed this spring. Further hollowing of the trunk will be done later. 

Current leader thickness, far from needed thickness to create natural appearance. 

Bark detail

In Summer 2012 with fresh branches. 

In Spring 2012 on beginning of its journey in my garden. 

Carpinus "The Yossarian" with new foliage

New foliage is emerging after defoliation performed on beginning of June. We are expecting extremely high temperatures during next week, so it was time for pictures with undamaged foliage. 

Betula pendula No.2

This birch bonsai was wired a little in spring. Few days ago it was just about right time to remove all the wires. All shoots were shortened and now tree will grow undisturbed for few weeks and than it will be cut back again. Tree needs another ten or so years to look credible, but that is part of the game with deciduous bonsai. It is marathon, not sprint. 

Carpinus betulus "Rusnak" new foliage

It took about 20 days to decent new foliage emerged on top of the tree after defoliation. It will take few days to harden and mature. But I can see some new branches and it was the purpose, improving ramification. You can see on comparison of leave size between pictures of bottom branches which were intact. Bottom branches need thickening to improve structure, so I will leave sacrifice branches until autumn to gain sizes. They already have about 4 mm-5 mm. I think they could gain few millimeters more. You have to sacrifice look of your bonsai in development if you want to build proper structured tree. I think if you are trying to keep underdeveloped tree in show-able stage you slowing down its development. Try to resits to cut all branches on "proper" length and let nature do its work. It will pay of in long term.