Recent content by Brian Van Fleet

Sounds fun, I’m in. The rest of y’all are playing for second.😂

Guessing it’s a soil/water retention issue. Putting it inside would not help, maybe shelter it from rain under an eaves and try tilting the pot a little so water runs out faster.

I’d be looking for a new teacher. Wire isn’t removed in a schedule, it’s removed based on whether it is digging in or not. That can be a few weeks up to a few years.

Here is a fall color shot. This year, I let that grafted branch on the left grow out a few feet to thicken it up. It did more than double before I cut it back, and needs to be wired down a little when the leaves fall.

My bad, two different trees. I love it when people drop full-size images into someone else’s threads. You clearly know what you want to do, so best of luck.

Always best to water based on the needs of the plant vs. a schedule, it just seems to me that watering every 2 weeks is really infrequent. Here is a resource from years ago that discusses watering, might be helpful: https://www.bonsainut.com/resources/watering-bonsai-trees.10/

That’s probably not enough. I’m watering my ficus every 3 days or so keeping it in the sunroom. I repot it in late June.

You bet. It’s what I did with mine and it turned out pretty well.

Looking at your tree, I would probably chop it really low in the early spring, down to 8-10” tall if you want at 30” tall tree eventually. I would let it grow freely for 2026 after chopping the trunk, and then dig it up and do some work on the roots in the spring of 2027. Then, it may be ready...

If you’re putting it in the ground, I’d just put it in the ground and let it grow. It will “stool” up and throw shoots from everywhere for a few years. After a few years, you can dig it up, prune it hard to create a trunk line, and then back in the ground for a few more years to accelerate...

Welcome to the site. First steps depend entirely on what you want it to look like and how big you want it to be. Normally, this tree would benefit from a few years in the ground to fatten up the trunk. Yes, some branches will need to be removed along the way, but really not yet. However, if...

Night shot of some fall color.

Trident Maple, Ino pot, last night…

First, to me the image on the left is better bonsai material than the image on the right, so in my opinion it has regressed. I’ve done it too. Second, repotting into a narrower, deeper container will not “get the roots in order” since bonsai pots are typically wider and shallow. This is...

You didn’t ask, and I hope your tree makes it, but my experience with beech is similar to @Gabler: they are unforgiving to training, need to be allowed to develop slowly, and they will punish efforts to be pushed like they are a maple. Like mine did, yours has regressed over the years. Out of...