The decandling season is starting earlier than normal for me this year. I’m looking to prepare a few trees for an exhibit in September but the pines in my garden usually grow through October and into November. By decandling early, I can increase the odds that a tree will look good in September at the expense of it looking slightly overgrown by the end of the year. (See “Overview of decandling” for details.)

Here’s one of the trees that needs to be decandled early. It’s growing well following a big bend and repotting in January.

Cascade black pine

In addition to decandling, I want to thin branches that split into three shoots by selecting two to keep and one to cut. Here’s what that process looks like.

Branch with three spring shoots

Although it’s hard to tell from the photo, the shoot on the left is the smallest of the three. The two on the right are about the same size.

Selecting a shoot to remove

After removing the smaller shoot

Next comes decandling – the removal of the spring growth.

After decandling

Some needle-plucking followed. First the two-year-old needles were removed.

After removing the two-year-old needles

And then a few of last year’s needles were plucked.

After removing a few one-year-old needles

This still left about 12-15 pairs of needles per shoot. While the count is higher than I’d normally leave on a tree like this, the needles are relatively short and the branches aren’t very dense.

Here’s the tree after decandling, cutback and needle-pulling.

After decandling and thinning – 25″ from top to bottom

The next step – once a few more trees are decandled – is wiring.

The post An early start to the decandling season appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.

I’m working on a number of five and six-year-old pines. Several look like the tree below, with vigorous growth on the top half of the tree and smaller shoots below.

Five-year-old red pine – 27″

I’d like to slow down the top half of the tree to encourage the bottom half to become more vigorous. I can do this by reducing the number of branches emerging from a single point along the trunk.

Branch whorl

Here’s the tree after removing about half of these branches.

After removing four of the nine branches at the whorl

I want to ensure the the lower branches receive even more light so I removed some of last year’s needles and thinned a few of this year’s new shoots.

After reducing last year’s needles

After thinning some of the new shoots

That’s all of the work I need to do for now. I could have done this work in fall or winter, but I often thin my young pines in spring and summer as I typically have more time this time of year.

Providing the lower branches with more light will help them grow stronger. In a year or (more likely) two, I plan to remove the current sacrifice branch close to the point indicated by the tweezers in the photo below.

The sacrifice branch will be removed at this point

One of the small shoots below will become the new leader, but it needs to grow stronger before I remove the top half of the trunk.

Candidate new leader

Were I to make this cut today, all of the lower shoots would become strong, making it difficult to use the current shoots for primary branches (they’d become too strong). Over the next two years, I’ll select the future primary branches and the new leader so when I remove the current sacrifice branch, I’ll have another branch ready to take its place.

Sei Boku Bonsai Kai’s 35th Annual Show this Weekend

The Sei Boku Bonsai Kai is hosting their 35th annual show from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. this Saturday and Sunday at the San Mateo Garden Center​. I’ll be demonstrating Saturday at noon and leading an open view workshop on Sunday, also at noon. The demo will feature work on a shohin black pine that will be raffled at the conclusion of the event.

Club sales of trees and pots, door prizes and raffles both days. I’ll also be vending tools and trees. Learn more at the Sei Boku website.

The post Bonsai Development Series #7: Preparing the next sacrifice branch appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.

Working on field-grown material a few years out of the ground is some of my favorite work. The main objectives for this early stage development are to heal wounds, create the upper sections of the trunk, and develop the primary branches.

The black pine below has been out of the ground for two or three years. My goals for it are to thicken the new leader and develop density on the lower branches.

At first glance, these goals are contradictory. To thicken the upper section of the trunk I want to encourage vigorous growth. To create density below I want to stimulate branch ramification. I’ll try to address both goals by letting the top grow and decandling the lower branches.

Japanese black pine – 47″

After thinning and decandling the lower branches

Here’s a close-up of the work on the lower section of the tree.

The trunk of the future bonsai

After thinning and decandling

Normally I’d leave the tree alone to thicken the new leader as fast as possible, but because I have low branches that I can use in the final design, I want to keep these branches from getting too strong. By decandling them, I can slow down their growth and improve branch density. By letting the sacrifice branch grow freely, I can heal the large wound near the top of the tree and thicken this upper portion of the trunk.

I took a somewhat opposite approach to another tree at the same stage of development. My goal for this pine is to stimulate more growth close to the trunk. I’ll do this by thinning and decandling the foliage furthest from the trunk.

Black pine

After cutback

After thinning, decandling, and needle-plucking – 37″

Here’s a close-up of the work on the lower part of the tree.

Before cutback and decandling

After

The basic outline of the work on the second pine is to move the areas of vigor from the tree’s exterior to its interior. This will take place over several years. Once the new leader primary and branches are established, a second round of sacrifice branches will help thicken this growth and heal any remaining wounds.

Sei Boku Bonsai Kai’s 35th Annual Show this Weekend!

The Sei Boku Bonsai Kai is hosting their 35th annual show from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. this Saturday and Sunday at the San Mateo Garden Center. I’ll be demonstrating Saturday at noon and leading an open view workshop on Sunday, also at noon. The demo will feature work on a shohin black pine that will be raffled at the conclusion of the event.

Club sales of trees and pots, door prizes and raffles both days. I’ll also be vending tools and trees. Learn more at the Sei Boku website.

The post Early stage development on field-grown black pines appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.

In general, we can expect black and red pines to produce a single flush of growth all year. If we remove this growth at the right time, we can expect a second flush to grow in the same calendar year.

On occasion, we might see pines produce this second flush of growth on their own. This is most common on young trees but not uncommon on older trees after removing large branches.

I removed a sacrifice branch from the pine below in March (see “Removing the sacrifice branch” for details). At the time, the spring shoots had just started to elongate.

Today, these shoots are completely open.

14 year-old black pine – June, 2018

As the result of losing such a large branch, the tree redirected a lot of its resources and is now creating new buds at the ends of this year’s shoots.

Summer buds elongating at the ends of spring shoots

The second set of shoots that develop on pines in summer can take a number of forms. Some, like those in the photo below, look like spring shoots that have started to elongate.

Summer shoots that resemble spring shoots

On other branches, we might find shoots next to each other that look quite different.

Different looking shoots on the same branch

Occasionally, some shoots will begin with juvenile growth.

Juvenile growth at the end of a spring shoot

Fortunately, these bonus shoots require no special care. They do, however, merit special attention.

Because the shoots are the tree’s way of signaling excessive vigor, we now have a sign that can guide what we do next. If the tree is early in its development, I’ll continue to let the tree grow.  If it’s in the refinement stage, I might try to slow the tree down by reducing the fertilizer, decandling later, and pulling extra needles.

My current plan is to cut back on the fertilizer and decandle this tree at the regular time in late June. I’ll find out how this approach works out in fall.

The post An unprompted second flush of growth on black pine appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.

Seeing a note on my calendar to finish decandling a pine, I headed outside and brought the pine below into the workshop.

Partially decandled black pine

The idea was to remove the weaker shoots ahead of the stronger shoots. Although I usually decandle all of a tree’s shoots on a single day, I occasionally remove the shoots in groups with the aim of balancing vigor across strong and weak areas of the tree (see decandling overview for details).

Before getting started, I looked closely at a shoot that had been cut last week and found that some summer buds had already set.

Summer buds below the cut

I wasn’t surprised that the buds had appeared just 10 days after decandling as we’ve been having sunny weather. What did surprise me was that I found similar buds on shoots that had yet to be decandled.

Summer buds forming on a shoot that hasn’t been decandled

This could be a common occurrence but I don’t remember seeing it before. It’s like the tree knows to produce buds everywhere after the first shoots have been decandled (which seriously brings the 10 day approach into question).

Going forward, I’ll look out for these buds before I start decandling.

While we’re on the topic, I wanted to make a pitch for an easy way to speed up decandling and reduce broken needles: by using tweezers to hold and remove the shoots to be cut.

My standard approach is to hold the scissors in my right hand and tweezers in my left. I use the tweezers to secure the shoot to be cut, and, when necessary, to move the shoot to whichever side allows me a better view of the area to be cut. Once the cut is made I can quickly flick the shoot out of the way.

Securing a shoot with tweezers

After making the cut

Using your fingers instead of tweezers works great on many trees, but when the shoots are small or the branch density great, it can be hard to reach places quickly that tweezers can get to with ease.

The pine below is a good example of a tree that’s fairly dense. As there’s no way my fingers can reach the inside shoots as quickly as a tweezers can, I prefer to use the tweezer approach.

After decandling

When I’m pulling needles, I use the tweezers in my right hand and the scissors in my left, but that’s a topic for another day.

Related Posts

Decandling black pine bonsai – an in-depth guide

An unprompted second flush of growth on black pine

The post Early appearance of summer buds and a decandling tip appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.

I fully defoliated a shohin Japanese maple about six weeks ago. Here’s what the tree looked like after removing all of the leaves.

Shohin Japanese maple – April 30

After a week, small buds started to appear along the branches.

May 10 – new buds appear

Tiny back buds

The first new leaves waited almost a month before opening.

May 25 – new leaves make an appearance

Back buds begin to open

More back buds appear

Once the leaves began to open, the tree’s appearance changed rapidly.

May 31

June 4

June 11

Now that most of the leaves are open, it’s clear that the foliage is still too dense. When these leaves harden off, I’ll look to remove every other leaf and/or reduce leaf size in an effort to let light into the tree’s interior. Without additional light, the new shoots won’t have much of an opportunity to develop which would undo some of the benefit of defoliating in the first place. Cutback and thinning of new shoots will likely wait until fall.

Related Posts

Defoliating a shohin Japanese maple

Defoliating a Korean hornbeam

Partially defoliating a Korean hornbeam

The post Follow-up – defoliating a shohin Japanese maple appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.

I’ve been working on an old cork-bark black pine since 2004. The tree has improved a lot over the years, but it still has a ways to go. The main focus at this stage is increasing the branch density.

Cork-bark black pine – 23″

The tree is strong enough to decandle most years, but was weak for the past several following a root aphid infestation. This year I decandled the strong shoots, left the weak ones alone, and removed about half of the old needles – slow work on a pine of this size, but not bad with good help (thanks Danny and Andrea!).

Here’s the tree after this work was complete.

Cork-bark black pine after partial decandling and thining old needles

And here’s the tree fourteen years ago.

Cork-bark black pine as acquired in 2004

In reviewing the old photos, I’m struck by the difference in a few key areas. The current apex was created from three shoots. There are far more now.

Apex detail

The first branch on the left has also developed nicely. A small number of long, slender shoots have been replaced by a good number of much shorter branches.

Improved branch density – first branch on the left

And somehow, even the trunk has improved with time.

Trunk detail

Here are photos of the back and sides of the tree from 2004 and from earlier this week.

Right side – 2o18

Right side – 2004

Back – 2018

Back – 2004

Left side – 2018

Left side – 2004

The tree is long overdue for wiring and styling. If it comes out well this summer, I can look forward to taking this next step in fall.

Related Posts

Why are my trees yellow?

Drench for root aphids follow-up 1

Stealthy pests – root aphid and adelgid

Decandling black pine bonsai – an in-depth guide

The post Increasing density on a cork-bark black pine appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.

When developing material for bonsai, it’s best to avoid creating straight trunks and branches. Many varieties, however, naturally produce straight growth. This gives us two options: cut or wire.

Cutting is often preferable to wiring as cuts can be used to create taper and angular movement. Wiring has its place too as it’s a quick way to put a branch where you want it.

I’ve been working on some cutting-grown plums by cutting and wiring select branches once or twice a year (see photos from the last cutback here). I enjoy this work as the idea is to give the trees qualities we appreciate in bonsai, like taper and movement, without following a specific plan. Here’s what this work looks like.

Cutting-grown plum

The shoot that emerges from the soil isn’t helping the design so I’ll cut it off. Likewise the shoot that grows downward from the inside of the curve.

After pruning

I left a single sacrifice branch on the back of the tree to help thicken the trunk but plan to remove it in fall to avoid a knuckle from forming.

The tree below is a great example of what happens if you don’t wire shoots when they’re young and supple. You end up with long, straight shoots that don’t help the design.

Long, straight shoots

Here’s a close-up of the three branches that emerge from the top of the trunk. As wiring isn’t an option, I’ll make some cuts.

Three branches emerging from the trunk

After cutback

After a while, the work becomes automatic and the straight sections start to disappear.

Young plum

Before cutback

After removing the straight sections

Here’s a similar example.

Before cutback

After cutback

A big reason to prune more than once a year is to discourage growth that doesn’t contribute to the overall design. On the tree below, a new shoot emerged near the base of the trunk. Because it has no curves, I’ll have to remove it. Had I noticed this earlier, the other shoots on the tree might have more vigor.

The shoot at the right is the strongest section of the tree

Close-up showing the strong shoot

After removing the strong shoot at the base of the trunk

Higher up on the trunk I found a shoot that’s creating a large knuckle.

Knuckle forming at the base of a shoot

After removing the shoot and reducing the knuckle

Near the top of the tree, a branch I’d previously wired showed unsightly swelling. This too will come off.

Swelling caused by wire scars

After reducing the branch with wire scars

After making a few cuts, I noticed that the remaining branches were too straight to use without wiring.

Straight branches

As now’s a great time to wire deciduous varieties, I added some movement.

After wiring the new leader

I’ll revisit the trees again in fall, and likely in a similar fashion over the next several years. At some point I’ll have to make some decisions about how large I want the trees to become, but in the meantime, I can encourage as much growth as possible and continue making periodic adjustments.

Read other posts from the Bonsai Development Series here.

The post Bonsai Development Series #8: Removing unnecessary branches appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.

Back in February I potted up around 60 bare-root satsuki azalea bonsai. Having not worked with bare-root specimens before, I was really curious to see how the trees would do with so few roots.

Most started out slowly due to cool weather, but since spring warmed up, they have been growing quickly. And now that summer has begun, all are under 30% shade cloth.

To get an idea of what the flowers looked like, I left a few buds on each tree. Here are photos of the five varieties I’ve been working with in bloom.

Yata-no-kagami – 9″

Momoka – 16″ wide

Shisen – 28″

Hi-no-maru – 12″

Koyo – 24″

For those interested in a Japanese-language satsuki reference with photos of popular varieties, I have a few dictionaries available here.

I have a number of satsuki bonsai available too (details here).

Related Posts

Repotting bare-root satsuki azaleas

Removing flower buds from satsuki azaleas

The post Bare-root azalea follow-up appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.

I thought I was nearing the end of decandling season when I remembered a table of black and red pines trained as exposed root bonsai.

My standard approach is to not decandle exposed root pines until the trees are older and the roots are thicker. Of course, the standard approach also entails wiring the trunk when it’s young to create movement. Due to a lack of time a few years back, I neglected to wire the trees and am now replacing the straight trunks when smaller branches.

In some cases, I didn’t have as many branches to work with as I’d like. To remedy this, I’m decandling the trees to encourage branch ramification. Once I have more branches to use in the final design, I can get back to thickening the trunk with sacrifice branches.

Here’s a quick before and after for seven pines with a brief description of the work.

Tree #1
A new sacrifice branch is off to a good start, but in the wrong direction

Tree #1
After decandling the foliage along the trunk and pulling down the sacrifice branch

Tree #2
Last year this tree was pruned to encourage growth on the lower branches

Tree #2
After decandling and wiring the lower branches

Tree #3
The new trunk is off to a good start but the sacrifice branch is too strong

Tree #3
After reducing the sacrifice branch and decandling the lower branches

Tree #4
The lower branches need wiring before they become too thick to bend

Tree #4
After decandling and wiring the lower branches

Tree #5
Like several of the trees above, the trunk is straight and the lower branches lack movement

Tree #5
I don’t often resort to reducing all of the branches, but I’m curious to see how the tree will respond

Tree #6
Yet another straight trunk with straight branches

Tree #6
After decandling and wiring the first branch

Tree #7 – Red pine
I wired several branches last year to give the tree options for a new trunk

Tree #7
After decandling to increase density

In fall, I can see how the trees responded to this summer’s work and make a plan for the coming year. Once a plan is set, I’ll let new sacrifice branches grow for a few years to help the roots thicken. Once the roots have developed, I can expose them and resume work on the branches.

The post Before and after – cutback and decandling exposed root black pines in development appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.

This past spring, as the deciduous bonsai in my garden began to leaf out, I noticed several dwarf flowering quince began to die back. Over the next two months, about half of these chojubai died.

I found no evidence of insects or fungus, and a nearby lab couldn’t identify the culprit either. Our best guess was that last fall’s heat wave was responsible for the damage.

Fortunately, the remaining trees have been growing well. Many, like the tree below, lost the main trunkline but retained shoots that emerged from the soil.

Young chojubai

Cuts indicate where the main trunks died back

I figured that many of the roots were dead so I thought I’d repot the trees to see if cutting back the damaged roots could help them recover. Here’s the rootball after removing the mostly dead roots around the edges of the rootball.

After rootwork

Close-up of the rootball

Knowing that chojubai are commonly defoliated during repotting, I stripped off the leaves.

After removing the leaves

I then added some movement by wiring the main shoots.

After wiring the branches

Repotting complete

To get a better idea about how chojubai respond to repotting in summer after defoliation, I repotted a few more.

Chojubai after defoliation and repotting

Of course, I had to repot some without defoliating to see if removing the leaves makes a difference.

Chojubai after repotting and not defoliating

How are the trees doing? I repotted on June 12. After two weeks, lots of new leaves have appeared on the defoliated chojubai.

New foliage

Chojubai looking good two weeks after repotting

The control group is also looking good, though a number of leaves have yellowed and dropped off.

The control group

Close-up of yellow leaves

The tree that lost the most leaves

Although the control group lost a number of leaves, all are growing at the branch tips and some are beginning to form new leaves along the main shoots.

Having done similar work in the past, I expect both groups to continue growing well through the summer. If, however, I notice a hiccup along the way, I’ll be sure to post with the results.

Related Posts

Repotting chojubai in fall

Chojubai and white pine from Nomoto Chinshou-en

The post Repotting young chojubai in summer appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.

When performing side-veneer grafts on conifers, it’s important to provide extra humidity for the scions to prevent them from drying out. Two popular approaches for doing this are to cover the scion with a small plastic bag or wrap the scion in stretchy material such as paraffinic tape or Buddy Tape.

While I appreciate both approaches, I most often use the plastic bag approach. (See “Grafting Utah juniper” for details about side-veneer grafts.)

The basics are simple. Cover the scion with a plastic bag and slowly open it after seeing signs that the scion is growing. Here’s what this means in practice.

Prostrata juniper – the subject to be grafted

After removing the low branches

The completed graft beneath a duct-tape “tent” used to shade the scion
(March 14)

If the grafting bag is adequately sealed, you’ll see condensation form on the inside of the bag.

Condensation in the grafting bag

Once the scion shows signs that it is growing, often 4-6 weeks after making the graft, I poke a single hole near the top of the bag.

The first perforation
(April 30)

If the scion still looks good a week later, I’ll poke a second hole in the bag.

Making a second hole – note the condensation inside the bag has decreased
(May 10)

The idea behind starting with such small perforations is to gradually decrease the humidity inside the bag as the graft union forms.

After adding a hole or two a week for several weeks, I used a knife to open a larger hole at the top of the bag.

Creating an opening at the top of the bag
(May 25)

As the hole-size increases, the humidity inside the grafting bag decreases.

Little condensation is left in the bag

Eventually, I extend the opening along the entire end of the bag.

Widening the hole at the end of the bag
(June 11)

With less humidity in the bag, I replaced the duct-tape “tent” with a single piece of tape to shade the scion.

Tape shading the scion

No more condensation inside the bag

After letting the scion grow for a week or two with the bag open, I remove the bag but keep the tie securing the scion in place.

The scion out in the open – itiogawa foliage on prostrata juniper
(July 2)

Prostrata juniper with scion at base of first branch

In the past, I’ve waited to open the bags until the scions were growing vigorously. This year, I thought I’d try opening the bag as soon as I saw new growth to see if that speeds up the process or slows it down. If I find it makes a difference, I’ll provide an update in a future post.

In the meantime, I’ll gradually reduce the original foliage to encourage the scion to grow. The tie that once held the bag will stay in place until the scion begins to swell.

The goal for this tree is to create a small bonsai by removing all of the prostrata foliage and replacing it with itoigawa foliage using a single scion.

Related Post

• Grafting Utah juniper – a post without words

The post Side-veneer graft aftercare – bag technique appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.

I’ve enjoyed growing a small potentilla for the last two years. As a deciduous shrub, I can appreciate the structure of the branches in winter and enjoy the flowers in summer.

Potentilla in bloom

Potentilla flower

In my garden, the tree really kicks into gear around this time of year. If my goal for this tree were to thicken the trunk or primary branches, I’d let it grow until fall so the tree could generate as much new growth as possible.

Trunk detail

As this specimen is small and somewhat dense, I find that interior branches die back unless I thin some of the foliage. In an effort to preserve these branches, I’ll remove some of the leaves and shorten the longer branches.

Five-lobed potentilla leaf

After thinning foliage and cutback – 5″ tall

Although I enjoy being able to see into the tree’s interior, I do miss the flowers. If I’m lucky, I may see a few more blooms before summer is over.

The post Enjoying potentilla in bloom appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.

With the fall bonsai exhibits still two months away, now’s a great time for some last minute show prep.

The owner of the pine below plans to exhibit the tree in the U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition in Rochester, New York, this fall.

Black pine – one month after decandling

To show the tree at its best, we’d like to improve the silhouette by wiring and move the tree into a better quality pot.

Here’s the tree after wiring.

After wiring

And here’s the tree after minor root work.

After root work

A few months ago, the tree’s owner asked MC2 Pottery to create a pot or two for the tree. Two pots arrived in the mail, each with designs on the front and back of the pot.

Pot 1 – side A

Pot 1 – side B

Pot 2 – side A

Pot 2 – side B

Looking around the workshop for more pots to try, we found a couple less traditional options. One was a bit small, the other was too big.

Pot 3

Pot 4

The winner for this round was pot 2, side B.

After repotting – pot 2, side B

Because the root work was minor, little aftercare is required. I’d try to keep the tree in a shady spot in hot weather for the next few weeks, and after that it can return to its sunny spot in the garden.

A big thanks to Hurley Johnson of Timeless Trees in Rosenberg, Texas, for use of his workshop (and for a fun bonsai weekend!) and to Vern Maddox for the chance to work on this pine that I started from seed in 2004.

The post Summer show prep: repotting black pine in July appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.

One thing I like to do when I bring new trees into the garden is to give them a close look. I don’t always stop to appreciate all of a tree’s good or bad points when I’m shopping so I try to take the time once the trees come to the garden.

I also like to check for pests, dieback, and discolored foliage, if any, to try to get a better sense of the health of the tree. This way I can have a baseline understanding of what care the tree will need going forward.

I recently acquired some collected redwoods from Mendocino Coast Bonsai where Bob Shimon maintains a great selection of oaks, Sierra junipers, and coast redwoods. The trees were covered with new shoots, including a number that sprouted from the ground near the base of the trunk.

Coast redwood

To get a better view of the trunk, I removed some of these low shoots.

After removing the low shoots

Trunk detail

One fun thing about redwood bonsai is that some specimens look like miniature trees while others look like small trees with fast taper and interesting deadwood. The tree above fits into the latter category. I’ll look to shape it in the form of a bonsai rather than a miniature version of a giant tree.

The tree below evokes fallen and half-rotten logs with sprouts throughout. I’ll try to preserve this look when it’s time for styling.

New shoots emerging from the trunk

I have a couple of options for the tree below. The base is large but there’s less deadwood so I may look to style this as a taller tree, depending on how many new shoots I have to work with on the upper section of the trunk. If new shoots don’t appear, I can reduce the trunk and aim for a more compact design.

Coast redwood with low shoots

The largest tree I picked up will be left tall. Although there is a large trunk and some deadwood, I like the idea of preserving several trunks that suggest more of a forest scene.

Multi-trunk redwood

Because these trees had been growing near the cost where the weather is cool, I’ve placed them under shade cloth to avoid burning the leaves. I plan to move them to a sunnier spot once the foliage is more used to the increased light. I’ll then look to repot the trees this fall or winter.

The post Bringing new trees into the garden: coast redwood appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.

If you haven’t checked the wired trees in your garden to see if any wire is cutting in, now’s a good time to do so.

I often wire a lot of trees over winter or in early spring and by this time of year a lot of the wires have started to cut in. This is more of a concern for deciduous varieties and young trees that are growing quickly, but it applies to conifers and older specimens as well.

The juniper below was wired over two years ago.

Shimpaku grafted on California juniper

It’s been growing slowly as the tree was stressed a few years ago and has yet to fully recover. It has, however, produced a lot of small new shoots this year that have caused some branches to swell.

Snug wires

Wires just starting to cut in

I typically let the wires cut in a bit on conifers before removing them as this helps the bends to set, but because I want this tree to gain vigor, I removed all of the wires.

After removing the wire

The tree looks about the same now as it did before removing the wire as the branches have set well. I don’t plan to wire the tree again until I see some runners extending beyond the silhouette of the tree. If the root growth has been good, I’d expect to see some of this by the end of the year. And at that rate the tree would be ready for wiring in just over a year.

Tune in Friday for more about juniper health and summer watering.

The post Removing wire from an old grafted Shimpaku appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.

I acquired a number of field-grown shimpaku junipers earlier this year. Most are growing well.

Healthy juniper

The best signs of health, in this case, are the green color and the handful of elongating shoots at the ends of the upper branches.

Vigorous shoot

Here’s another healthy juniper that produced a lot of growth this spring.

Juniper with elongating shoots

Some of the other trees in the group aren’t doing as well. The juniper below is healthy and green but it hasn’t grown much this year.

Healthy, but relatively weak juniper

Foliage detail

I’m not overly concerned about the health of this tree, but I am watching the watering carefully. I check the soil daily and rarely water more than once per week.

All but one of the trees in this group look like the junipers above. A few weeks ago, this last juniper turned yellow.

Yellow juniper

Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the upper surface of the foliage was yellow while the same branches were green when seen from below.

Yellow foliage above

Green foliage below

When I see signs of stress like this, my first guess is that something is wrong in the soil. The tree hadn’t grown at all this year but it retained its color into June. I’d been mostly misting the foliage for the past two months as the rootball almost never dried out, but was more surprised by this than concerned. When the foliage turned yellow, I began to worry.

I moved the tree under shade cloth and continued watering the foliage but not the soil. The tree, however, continued to decline.

At this point, I figured the tree was lost. Curious about the state of the roots, I decided to take a closer look and see if I could learn what happened.

When I took the tree out of the pot, a bunch of soil fell away without prompting. This was a bad sign – there were no healthy roots on the outside of the rootball.

Not-quite-intact rootball

I picked away at the pumice and later the field soil at the center of the rootball. There wasn’t much cause for optimism.

After bare-rooting

I started reducing the dead roots to see if I could find any signs of life. And after removing the bulk of the roots, I found a single sign of life. Here is the healthy root pictured with a dead root of similar size for comparison.

Dead root (above) and live root (below)

I looked even more closely around the rootball and eventually found a small cluster of feeder roots.

Fine roots

Of course, one healthy but corse root and a few fine roots didn’t exactly get my hopes up. All of the other roots had dried up and begun to rot.

After trimming the dead roots

Wanting to give the live roots a chance to grow, I planted the tree in a much smaller put, returned it to a spot under the shade cloth (30%), and will resume watering the foliage without soaking the soil.

After repotting

What might of led a young, healthy tree to go into decline? One guess has to do with the large dead branch near the base of the trunk.

Dead branch

I don’t know if the branch was alive when the tree was first potted or if it died later. Either way, it made me think about which roots were connected to the section of the lifeline that fed this branch.

It turns out that most of the roots were connected to the dead branch. If the low branch had been pruned when the tree was collected, this could have cut off any connection the bulk of the roots had to live foliage. If the branch was alive when the tree was dug and died later, it could be that something else was at play.

Having dug field-grown trees I know that you don’t always get an even number of roots all the way around the trunk. What this example teaches me, is that we now have yet another reason to preserve lots of foliage when we collect conifers: not only do we want to maintain as many healthy roots and foliage as possible, but we want to preserve a good connection between them.

Related Posts

Spring watering tips

Summer watering

Keeping bonsai from drying out in summer

The post Can you see the signs? Identifying weak roots by checking the foliage appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.

For my young trees in development, I tend to focus on a single question during the growing season: do I prune now or wait until fall?

Chinese quince – four years old from seed

The goal at this stage is to develop the trunk as fast as possible. Because the sacrifice branches are well-positioned, I’ll let them continue growing and revisit the tree in fall.

The tree below is similar, if more vigorous.

Young quince

Trunk detail

Like the first tree, the above tree has good curves and the sacrifice branches are well-positioned. I’ll let it grow until fall.

The tree below looks the same from across the room, but up close it’s easy to see an awkward branch division.

Young quince

Awkward branch division

The first branch on the right side of the tree emerges vertically and is as thick as the trunk. To avoid this area from swelling in the future, I removed the vertical section.

After removing the vertical section of the branch

Looking closely at this branch, the base still looked awkward so I removed the whole thing. Based on the size of the stub that came off with the branch, I’m glad I made the cut.

The stub at the base of the branch

After removing the the first branch on the right

Further up the trunk, I found three branches that emerged fairly close to each other. I removed the center branch to avoid swelling in this area.

Three branches growing close to each other

After removing the center branch

The fourth quince I looked at looked like the others, but up close I found an even more pronounced slingshot-like branch division.

Young quince

“Goalpost” or “slingshot”-like branch division

By cutting this branch now, I can avoid swelling in this area and let the tree can begin to heal sooner rather than later.

After removing the branch on the right

Just beyond this area, the trunk splits into four branches. Two are small.

Two small branches

And two are relatively large.

The two larger branches

Because the two larger branches are too corse to bend, I’ll leave them alone for now so they can help the trunk thicken but plan to remove them later. Either of the two thinner branches will make a good new leader so I wired them both. I’ll decide which to keep when I revisit the tree in fall.

After wiring the thinner branches

I can follow this basic routine above for the rest of my quince.

1. If the sacrifice branches look good, I’ll let them grow.
2. If there are significant flaws in the branching, I’ll remove the offending branches.
3. If I need to develop a new section of trunk, I’ll wire available branches, if any, to set curves before the branches thicken.

It’s also a good time to apply more fertilizer as these trees typically grow through summer and into fall.

Related Post

Fall cutback on young Chinese quince

The post Bonsai Development Series #9: Evaluating sacrifice branches mid-season appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.

Two months ago I partially defoliated a mature Korean hornbeam (see “Focus on defoliation” for details).

After defoliation – May 2018

I’d been curious about the effect of removing more leaves than normal so I cut about 60-70% of the foliage to see what would happen.

Since then, the tree has grown well. New leaves came out quickly and now young shoots are extending beyond the silhouette.

July 2018 – two months after partial defoliation

In past years, I let the tree grow freely after defoliating until the tree went dormant in fall. This year I was struck by the size of the new leaves and length of the new shoots. In an effort to preserve the fine branches in the tree’s interior, I reduced these new shoots to one or two leaves. Trimming these shoots reduces the vigor of the exterior branches and lets more light into the tree’s interior.

New shoot

After shortening to two leaves (the third leaf is from another branch)

I also cut back shoots that emerged directly from the trunk and removed some of the larger leaves.

After trimming new shoots and removing large leaves

Going forward, I’m going to keep a closer watch on my more refined deciduous trees and trim any new shoots before they get too long to keep the tree’s vigor in check.

Related Post

Focus on defoliation – determining how many leaves to remove

The post Defoliation follow-up: refining a Korean hornbeam appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.

Since repotting a neglected San Jose juniper last fall, I’ve been thinking about the tree’s options for future development. The main question is whether to work with the existing branches or graft new branches.

San Jose juniper

Whenever possible, I like to work with existing branches because it’s much faster to develop a tree by wiring than it is by grafting. The reason I hesitate to wire this tree is that most of the existing branches are coarse.

Thick branch

While coarse branches can be bent, the resulting bends aren’t always as compelling as bends made in slender branches.

Thick branch

Thick branch with a single bend

With thinner branches, I can add several bends in the same amount of space.

Slender branch

Several bends along a thin branch

The number of divisions along a branch is just as important as branch size. The above branches lack side branches and extend a long way from the trunk before dividing. As a result, neither are good candidates for use in the final design.

What I’d most like to use are slender branches with good secondary or tertiary structure.

Young branch with the beginnings of secondary branches

As the goal for this tree is to make it more compact, such young branches would be great for defining the tree’s silhouette.

Trunk detail suggesting future height of the tree

Without these branches, this juniper is a great candidate for grafting. And with that decision made, the next step will be deciding what kind of foliage to use when it’s time to graft.

A good candidate for bending

Here’s another juniper, a procumbens, with lots of fine branches.

30 year-old procumbens juniper

Even the largest branches are relatively small, and many have good secondary structure.

Ready-made branch pad

The main reason that some of these branches won’t be used in the final design is that the longer ones lack ramification.

Long branch with poor ramification

Fortunately, there are several small shoots growing near the base of this branch. In this case, the large branch can be removed and the small shoots can take its place.

Young shoots at the base of the branch

The abundance of short, well-ramified branches make this tree a great candidate for wiring.

Together, branch size and character are the main characteristics I consider when deciding between wiring and grafting. If you can think of other considerations – apart from changing the foliage – feel free to note them below!

Related Post

Repotting an old San Jose juniper

The post When to graft and when to bend: evaluating branch structure appeared first on Bonsai Tonight.