Icy larches from my back yard this morning (May 11). 25 degree Fahrenheit (-4 celsius) last night here in the lovely, underpopulated (now you know why) Northeast Kingdom, Vermont. I left a mist on all night to protect these newly dug and newly sprouted larches. It worked, the ice has melted (it’s sunny and around [...]
One little man made hill that serves as landscaping and as a growing bed for future bonsai. Coming soon I’ve started digging some of my field grown stuff and putting them in plastic containers. Soon we’ll start photographing and putting some up for sale. Larches and some others More than half of what I’ve been [...]
You can find this in-training collected Larch in Bonsai from the Wild by Larch Master Nick Lenz (Stone Lantern Publishing). Good tapers on larches are hard to come by. This exceptionally strong taper is the result of what Nick calls a ‘swamp layer.’ For details see the chapter on larches in Bonsai from the Wild [...]
Nick Lenz calls this rugged heavily scarred old larch a ‘super hack back job’ (performed with a chainsaw). It’s noteworthy for its excellent taper and nebari (among other things), things that doesn’t come naturally with most larches. I guess you could say that the Halloween carving is also noteworthy. The photo is from Nick’s book, [...]
This American larch (Larix laricina) was sent to us by John Romano. It was selected as 1 of 100 in JAL World Bonsai Photo contest 2004. It was purchased as raw collected stock from American larch hero Nick Lenz. John Romano has been devoted to teaching bonsai for the past ten years and has developed [...]
Have you tried field growing? You don’t need a lot of space to experiment with a small number of plants and the results will easily exceed expectations that have been conditioned by container growing. One of the reasons the Japanese have so many well developed bonsai is field growing. In the west, we tend to [...]
