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 50 now) and all is well. Photos by Amy Palmer.

An ugly little Eastern white cedar (Cham thyoides) made beautiful by icing. Eastern white cedars (not to be confused with Northern white cedars ‘Thuja occidentalis’ which are abundant around here) don’t do very well here, it’s too cold. I’ve had three or four that I’ve been trying to grow for years, but all they do is struggle and barely stay alive.

I don’t know what this is. I dug it along side the road where the town keeps cutting stuff down, just to see if it has any possibilities. I doubt if it will ever be a bonsai, but it might fit in as a landscape plant.

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 growing are larches that have been collected here in northern Vermont. All have been pruned some. Some has been wired and a few have even been carved. Most are not bonsai pot ready, but all have good potential.

Stone Lantern
When they are ready, I’ll be putting them up here and on Stone Lantern (where you will be able to order them). Speaking of Stone Lantern, check out our latest sale. I’ve been discounting individual items like a madman, with no end in sight (well, not yet anyway).

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 (THE book on collecting).

Planting two trunks together that diverge as they ascend is a good way to create the appearance of taper. This image is from an article by Nick Lenz entitled Larch with Taper, that appears in The Bonsai Journal.

Check out our previous post on larches: In Praise of the American Larch: aka the Tamarack

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, Bonsai from the Wild (Stone Lantern Publishing).

Round these parts it’s a Tamarack
Here in Vermont we are right on the southern edge of the Larix laricina’s range. Most bonsai enthusiasts (and many others) refer to it as the American larch, but around here almost everyone calls it the Tamarack.

So many good qualities
Of all the trees that grow around here, larches are the most prized bonsai candidates. They are easy to grow, flexible, take to pruning and root pruning, have small bright green needles and excellent fall color, the wood is easy to carve and the resulting deadwood is attractive, they develop real character with age, and so forth…

This rugged old naturally dwarfed larch is makes its home in the middle of a somewhat barren and boggy, larch-friendly field. Nick Lenz says that trees like this one with plenty of deadwood are often riddled with borers and that the gems are usually found in the smaller mounded forms (if you look close, you can see some). This photo is also from Nick’s book, Bonsai from the Wild.

And quite unique in their own right
Larches are abundant in these parts, especially in the boggy lowlands. However, because they are conifers that happen to be deciduous, they are unique among the world’s trees (there are only three or four – depending how you classify – deciduous conifers in the world). This gives larches a special cache, as well as a bright yellow fall color.

This  famous bonsai (also from Nick’s book) gives you a pretty good idea of why larches are valued for their seductive yellow-golden fall foliage.

A little man-made rocky hill in my back yard that doubles as a bonsai field growing area. You can see about twelve different species in this shot (excluding the big trees in the back) including several larch. If you are interested in more on field growing, here’s the latest in a series of posts we have been running.

Not ready yet
I’ve been collecting young larch for about five years and growing them on. They are all are still fairly small and need to stay in the field for many more years to age and gain some character, so none are really developed enough to show you much. Nevertheless, here’s a couple photos to give you some idea of what’s going on.  Meanwhile, for the real goods, we always have Rarch Master Renz’s (Larch Master Lenz’s) trees to enjoy.

Here’s one I dug up on a friend’s farm and stuck in my yard for about four years. There trunk is almost 2″ (5cm) thick just above the root that flares out on the right. As you can see, it lacks good taper, which is a common drawback with larches. This year I decided it was time to do a little work on it, so that’s why its in a training pot. I ended up butchering it a bit (some people call it carving) and then sticking it back in the ground. As is often the case, I neglected to take photos. BTW: This photo and the one above are by my friend Amy Plamer, one person who does have the wherewithal to remember her camera.

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 Kaikou School of Bonsai (a two year program at at New England Bonsai). Kaikou is a somewhat archaic Japanese term that means ‘unexpected encounter’ or ‘crossing paths’.

Your turn
Our Fearless Bonsai Warrior program is about you and your bonsai. In other words, I want you to send us photos. It’s easy, just attach them to an email to wayne@stonelantern.com. You don’t have to be a professional or a bonsai teacher (like John Romano), just someone with a bonsai and a camera.

Don’t worry about rejection
Don’t worry about rejection or ridicule. I like all attempts at bonsai, even the ones I don’t like. If we like yours enough, we’ll feature it here. If not, I’ll send you a kind and gentle letter explaining what I think you need to do to improve your tree. Not that what I think will necessarily be helpful, but there’s always a chance, however remote.

Another of John Romano’s bonsai. This Dwarf Japanese garden juniper (Juniperus procumbens ‘nana’) was purchased at New England Bonsai in 2003. My guess is that it originally came from the Los Angeles area, as I don’t think you will ever see a trunk that thick on a procumbens nana that was grown in New England or anywhere else in the temperate zone. Though I like this tree, I can see a couple things that might be improved. Anyone have any ideas?

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 grow bonsai stock in containers. In Japan, most stock is field grown; you’ve no doubt noticed the strikingly powerful Japanese Black Pines in the two photos above (from Morten Albek’s Shohin Bonsai). Though I don’t know how old those massive trunks are, my best guess is they are around fifteen or so, even though they look much, much older.

I used to grow all my stock in containers, now I grow almost all in the field, or more accurately, in my yard. I just incorporate them into my landscaping (some will no doubt just stay there), which tends to be Japanese influenced with a certain rocky Vermont feel. Lots of junipers and dwarf and miniature conifers cultivars, as well as collected larch, spruce, cedars, maples, balsam fir, hemlocks and others. Right now, I have about a hundred potential bonsai in the ground and hundreds more planned (eight acres helps).

So far, the larch (Larix laricina) are the most responsive, with rapidly expanding trunks and plentiful branching (the Larch above is from the cover of Nick Lenz’s Bonsai from the Wild; it was originally collected in the wild, so you could say it was field grown by Mother Nature). Larch love water and no doubt respond to my compulsive watering disorder. The soil here is very sandy, and the land is almost floating on water with several springs, a natural pond and a very generous drilled well. When Al’s big drought comes, we’ll be the last to know it.

One disadvantage to plentiful watering is leaching nutrients out of the soil. My solution is to top dress with partially broken down cedar mulch and to add plenty of local organic fertilizer. Fresh wood chips rob the soil of nitrogen (which they give back later when they break down) so it’s best to wait until they’ve aged a couple years before you use any.

I plan to feature field growing fairly regularly, so stay tuned. I’d like to show you some pictures, but right now everything is hidden under an impressively thick white blanket. In about three months the action starts and I’ll post some photos then.

Meanwhile, it’s not too early to start planning for the spring.