Here’s Juan Adrade’s caption for this photo. “Partial defolation on one of the grandfather trees. Close to 100 yrs old (Defoliación de las ramas exteriores en uno de los tridentes del abuelo de mi maestro. Este arbol posiblemente se acerca a los 100 años).” All the photos in this post are from a series of photos on Juan’s facebook feed.
Facebook is great if you like photos of children, animals or glassy eyed people over eating at restaurants. If you’re lucky and you have the right friends, you might find good photos of quality bonsai. However, it’s somewhat unusual to find original in depth articles on any subject on facebook, and a useful how-to bonsai article supported by great photos is rare indeed. Unless you follow Juan Adrade (with apologies to Peter Tea and one or two others).
The photos shown here are a sampling from an excellent article by Juan. It works as a continuation of a Bark post from a few days ago. If you’re interested in a good how-to lesson on defoliation (specifically on maples but pertinent to other deciduous trees), I suggest you take a look for yourself.
Juan’s caption: “100% defoliation on a mature trident that was rather strong this year (Defoliacion al 100% en un tridente que comenzo el año inusualmente fuerte).”
Juan again: “Defoliating and cutting the outer canopy not only prevents inner branch die back but also invigorates them so they can catch up with the outer canopy in the long run (Defoliando y podando la copa exterior podemos no solo prevenir que la ramas internas se sequen sino que al largo plazo las revigorizamos”).
One of a number of very useful how-to photos. Juan’s caption: “On trident and long-petioled species we can defoliate by grabbing bunches of leaves and cutting them all at once. Whether we cut the tip of the branch or not depends on its strength (En maples tridentes y especies con peciolo largo podemos defoliar tomando un grupo de hojas y cortandolas todas a las vez. Si podamos la punta de la rama o no depende del vigor de esta).”
Tools to defoliate, thin, prune, transplant. All of our Roshi Bonsai Tools are now 25% off (plus another 10% for any Stone Lantern order of 100.00 or more).