Keeping the Bonsai Vibe Cool in Rising Summer Heat

Here’s what Bjorn Bjornholm wrote about this impressive root-over-rock (root-swallowing rock) bonsai. “Trident Maple after defoliation and subsequent second flush. The leaves are all pinky nail size or smaller.” Given all the publicity lately, you might think Bjorn Bjorholm is a rising bonsai superstar. A couple weeks ago we featured a post about Bjorn Bjorholm’s Online Bonsai Course and so far we’ve featured about a dozen posts on Bjorn and his bonsai. All the photos in this post are from Bjorn’s facebook feed. You might also like to visit his website and Bonsai Empire’s site on Bjorn’s intermediate online bonsai … Continue reading Keeping the Bonsai Vibe Cool in Rising Summer Heat

Defoliating Grandfather – Redirecting Energy, Maintaining Balance & Creating Fine Branching

Here’s Juan Adrade’s English caption for this magnificent old Trident maple. “Partial defolation on one of the grandfather trees. Close to 100 yrs old.” Here’s his Spanish: “Defoliación de las ramas exteriores en uno de los tridentes del abuelo de mi maestro. Este arbol posiblemente se acerca a los 100 años.” You might notice the part about exterior branches in the Spanish. This would indicate that Juan is redirecting energy away from the outer tips and down closer to the center of the tree. This photo is from Juan’s facebook feed. Defoliation is an important technique for redirecting energy, maintaining … Continue reading Defoliating Grandfather – Redirecting Energy, Maintaining Balance & Creating Fine Branching

Staying on Message: A Few More Tips on Defoliation

Here’s Juan Adrade’s English caption for this photo. “Partial defolation on one of the grandfather trees. Close to 100 yrs old.” Here’s his Spanish caption: “Defoliación de las ramas exteriores en uno de los tridentes del abuelo de mi maestro. Este arbol posiblemente se acerca a los 100 años.” Here’s our translation of the Spanish: “Defoliation of the exterior branches of one of my teacher’s Trident maples. This tree is probably about 100 years old.” You might notice the part about exterior branches in the Spanish. This would indicate that Juan is trying to redirect energy away from the outer … Continue reading Staying on Message: A Few More Tips on Defoliation

Defoliation & Energy Balancing for Strong Bonsai

This photo is the inspiration for starting a new series on defoliation. It’s a Ficus and as you can see it’s half defoliated. If you live in the tropics you can defoliate a tree like this any time of year. If you want to defoliate a Ficus or other tropical bonsai here in the north country, you need to wait until it’s pretty warm (let’s say until night temps are over 50F, 10C). If you defoliate too soon, cold nights could hamper recovery. Conversely you don’t want to wait too long into the summer as you want full recovery before … Continue reading Defoliation & Energy Balancing for Strong Bonsai

American Elm Bonsai – It Only Looks Like a Zelkova

At a glance, or even on closer inspection, you might think this is a Zelkova. After all, Zelkova is the most common broom style bonsai and the leaves even look Zelkovish. However, it’s not. It’s an American elm that belongs to Suthin Sukosolvisit. You don’t see that many American elm bonsai (or American elms at all for that matter, thanks to Dutch elm disease). And you certainly don’t see many, if any, American elm bonsai as well developed as this one. We have Suthin Sukosolvisit to thank for this. Just in case you don’t know him, Suthin is one of … Continue reading American Elm Bonsai – It Only Looks Like a Zelkova

Defoliating, Repotting & Other Tricks

Trident Maple (Kaede) at the Kokufu-ten in 1972. It now lives in Washington D.C. at the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum. The photo is from Capital Bonsai. Back to square one I’m still trying to get back to square one after the 3rd U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition, so I won’t say too much except that I’ve recently come across two excellent posts about Trident maples. The first is at Capital Bonsai and shows the repotting of a famous old Trident that now resides at the U.S. National Bonsai and Penjing Museum, and the second, which is about defoliation (and more), … Continue reading Defoliating, Repotting & Other Tricks

Developing Ramification on Deciduous Bonsai: 2

Two plus zero (plus one later) makes three installments These illustrations represent tw0 pages from Bonsai Today issue 66 (out of stock, see previous post). It’s the second installment (here’s the first) of a five page series on ramification (branching) that we are running over three posts (I originally said two posts, but have decided to expand to three).