There’s Something About Larches

Larches in training by Francois Jeker. Good stock helps Larches are easy to grow (especially if you live in the north), easy to train and they are naturally attractive trees. If you start with decent stock and you have some grasp of design and technique, you can end up with the kind of results you see above. Near limitless possibilities This is not to say each tree couldn’t have been styled differently as they certainly could have. Give the same potential bonsai to five different bonsai artists and you’ll end up with five different trees. Bonsai Aesthetics If you’d like … Continue reading There’s Something About Larches

Imperfect, Yet Compelling

Imperfect, unfinished and unbalanced… yet, still compelling in its naturalness and with its luminous foliage, aged bark and deadwood (if you ignore the unfinished jin at the top). By Andrei Darusenkov. Just a little luck This larch is a little different from the one in our last post, which featured a near perfect little collected larch (the kind you could spend a lifetime looking for). This one shows a type tree that us ordinary collectors with our limited experience and just a little luck might find sometime. Taking a few liberties and indulging in a little imagination I don’t know … Continue reading Imperfect, Yet Compelling

Wouldn’t You Like to Find a Tree Like This?

Wouldn’t you like to find a tree like this when you are out collecting? This is a cropped version of Autumn, by Giacomo Pappalardo. From his facebook wall photos. I assume it is Giacomo’s, though I find no mention of it anywhere; just the photo. A trunk with everything This funky (in the good sense) trunk has everything: shape, massive girth, aged bark, a natural looking hollow (sabamiki) and a perfect touch of deadwood. Though you could make an argument for hiding some of the trunk’s heaviness near the top (the dark hole above the jin), I imagine Giacomo decided … Continue reading Wouldn’t You Like to Find a Tree Like This?

Screwing Around

Graham Potter’s hands doing the screwing (into a larch). The image is from a video on styling an old larch (the same larch, and the same video we used a few days ago) on Graham’s Kaizen Bonsai site. It’s another way to do the same thing Often, when you want to use wire to pull two parts of a tree closer together, you can find branches or stubs or something else to fasten the wire to. But what if you can’t? Or what if you can, but you are concerned about the wire damaging the part of the tree you … Continue reading Screwing Around

Larch Roots & TMS

Larch bonsai in full fall display. By Larch Master Nick Lenz. Larch roots & TMS I know the topic in this post is a bit arcane, but I’d like to know if anyone out there has any more info on TMS. The research quoted below is from this journal. “The roots of 200 one-year-old Changbai Larch (Larix olgensis) seedlings were soaked for 6 hours at the TMS concentrations of 2000, 1000, 500, 250, 125, and 62 ?L·L?1. Mean seedling height, root collar diameter, main root length and number of lateral roots were measured every 15 days during growing season from … Continue reading Larch Roots & TMS

Coming Soon: Field Grown Bonsai Stock

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 … Continue reading Coming Soon: Field Grown Bonsai Stock

Larch Master Lenz

One of Nick Lenz’ famous larches as it appears in Wikipedia. A little Nick Yesterday, we featured a couple of Candy Shirley’s bonsai that I believe had their start with Nick Lenz, so this seems like a good time to offer a little more Nick for your enjoyment. The same tree: different angle, different time. Photo is from Nick’s book, Bonsai from the Wild (now on special at Stone Lantern).