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

NEW Bonsai Book: Literati Style Penjing

Penjing Master Zhao Qingquan’s long awaited Literati Style Penjing, Chinese Bonsai Masterworks has arrived and is available at Stone Lantern. At a glance, we’ll give it five stars. Upon further examination, we’ll still give it five stars. I haven’t been this excited about a new bonsai book for a long time. The problem is, we have been writing copy for so long that we’ve exhausted all the superlatives; sometimes on books that don’t begin to measure up to this one. So, instead of saying much more, we’ll just borrow from the publisher: “Overview … the Japanese art of creating miniature … Continue reading NEW Bonsai Book: Literati Style Penjing

One Larch, Four Bonsai Pots (plus one)

One American larch, four pots (plus the original pot below). All this images in this post were borrowed from Boon Manakitivipart’s facebook feed (the image above is a composite that we put together). Boon is at it again. This time it’s our prized local larch (Larix laricina). Around here we call it Tamarack (the Algonquian name that means “wood used for snowshoes”). No matter what you call it, it is in my opinion, by far the best local wild species for bonsai. Bar none. Which pot do you prefer? If you are ambitious, you might tell us why. (NOTE: So … Continue reading One Larch, Four Bonsai Pots (plus one)

Transplanting: Looking for the Happy Zone

Here’s what our friend Michael Hagedorn has to say about this lovely Japanese maple: “This maple in Shinji Suzuki’s tokonoma is in a pot typical of this kind of tree. It works better aesthetically, in two ways. A shallow pot will make the nebari continue spreading, and the delicacy of the trunks is enhanced by a shallower pot. But a maple is also a tree that appreciates water. And a shallow pot will retain more moisture than a deeper one, in a soil-to-soil relative way. It’s a wetter pot.” All the photos in this post are from Crataegus Bonsai. Rain … Continue reading Transplanting: Looking for the Happy Zone

Backcountry’s Cork Bark Ponderosa Pine (with a Little Help from Bonsai Mirai)

Backcountry Bonsai doesn’t show any Ponderosa bonsai, so we borrowed this yamadori Ponderosa pine from Ryan Neil’s Mirai, American Bonsai. There are signs of what some people might call corking (see the close up at the bottom of the post), but I don’t think Back Country Bonsai would qualify it as a cork bark Ponderosa. I just stumbled across a new Backcountry Bonsai post and, in addition to getting all excited about rediscovering Steve and Dan’s excellent blog (here’s the original discovery), I learned something new. Namely that there is such a thing as a Cork bark Ponderosa pine. Here’s … Continue reading Backcountry’s Cork Bark Ponderosa Pine (with a Little Help from Bonsai Mirai)

Grafting Bonsai – You Might Want to Wait Until the Fall

A few stills captured from Capital Bonsai’s video on grafting that features Ryan Neil owner of Mirai American Bonsai and major player in this fall’s Artisans Cup bonsai exhibition in Portland, Oregon. I’m out of town visiting friends for the weekend, so to spare me putting together a new post, we’ll jump into our time machine this morning. All the way back to November, 2012. We could just forgo a post today and no one would complain, but I wanted to remind you that our Stone Lantern FREE bonsai wire offering ends tonight at 11:59pm EDT (Just write FREE in … Continue reading Grafting Bonsai – You Might Want to Wait Until the Fall

Feed Your Bonsai (They Don’t Survive on Water, Light and Love Alone)

Your bonsai may never look like this, but they can be this healthy. It’s a Chinese Quince (Pseudocydonia sinensis) from this year’s Kokufu Exhibition. I picked it for a couple of reasons. First it shows early spring leaves (forced for the mid-winter Exhibition) and for some of us it’s early spring now. Second, this post is about fertilizing, and this tree is from Japan where bonsai growers know the value of timely fertilizing. It’s archive time again. The tree above appeared here on Bark a couple months ago. Most of the rest of what you see here is from an … Continue reading Feed Your Bonsai (They Don’t Survive on Water, Light and Love Alone)

Wire All the Way Out to the Tips and Don’t Forget to Take It All Off

Japanese white pine bunjin wired at Taisho en. From ‘The Art of Bonsai.’ Taking the first Sunday of spring (ha!) off today, so we’ll dig it into the vast wealth buried in our archives. The original is titled Wiring Tips: Take It All Off (but not too early). It appeared in May of 2011. BTW: it’s no accident that it’s about wiring. Our Big Kilo Wire Sale ends tonight and I thought this might serve as a good reminder. It this light, I’ve added something called Wiring All the Way Out to the Tips from another earlier post. Take it … Continue reading Wire All the Way Out to the Tips and Don’t Forget to Take It All Off

A Fabulous Fake

Whatever it is, it’s wonderful. We just featured this ‘bonsai’ in our last post. Turns out it’s a fabulous fake. Or, maybe fake isn’t the right word. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that it’s a wonderful clay representation of a bonsai. The artist is Paul Finch, according to Nik Rozman. Running behind today so we’ve dipped into our archives and come up with this hodgepodge post from January 2012. Some dated events were removed for obvious reasons. Some unnecessarily wordy copy was also removed. Before and after. It helps to start with great stock. Still, it takes … Continue reading A Fabulous Fake

Bonsai Wire Sale: Kilo Rolls for as low as 13.90

Don’t let yourself run out of Bonsai Wire. It’s great to have exactly the right wire at hand when you need it. Save Big on Kilo Rolls of Bonsai Wire 1-3 Rolls 15% off = 16.58 each 4-9 Rolls 20% off = 15.60 each 10+ Rolls 25% off = 14.62 each only 13.90 with your extra 5% off plus an added 5% off on orders of 100.00 + and FREE Shipping on U.S. orders of 40.00 or more plus reduced shipping on overseas orders Bonsai Today Back Issues 50% off