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About a decade ago my club bought a dozen flowering cherry seedlings from Bill V. I took one and in just a few years it stated flowering as advertised. The only problem is that it breaks bud too early. It often starts flowering before I get it out of winter storage. So this year I took a...

Is everyone getting annoying ads with every post or do I have a virus? How do you get rid of them with out closing each individually?

This is an apple tree collected in Northern Michigan in2008. There were no other apple trees nearby and I have no idea what variety it is. It responded well to all the usual techniques. Then, last spring I noticed that the bark, especially on the smaller branches, was getting all wrinkly and...

This tree is an Eastern Red Pine (Pinus resinosa). It had seemingly succumbed to a severe draught. There was no green anywhere, just a few brown needles clinging to some dead looking branches at the crown. But the next spring, after ample rain, this happened. The trunk sprouted new growth from...

Just a quick question. What do you call it when you bring two branches closer together by putting a wire loop around them and twisting it tighter with a stick in the middle? Is there a name for that? I was trying to explain this to a friend and had no luck.

If I can't have muffin-topped trees, at least I can have muffin-topped benches.

Like many B-Nutters I’m sure, I have a tree hospital – an area where I put my newly collected trees or trees that have had an emergency repot or trees which for some unknown reason aren’t doing well. It is under a big old maple tree on the edge of my property. There they get dappled sun most...

Here are some pictures of Vance W. and a couple of his mugos at the Michigan All State/ American Bonsai Society show. The first one isn't too bad but the other two I must have moved the camera. Sorry about that, they are outstanding tree when seen in person.

I have had a common lilac that started out as a sucker on a beautiful big old bush that belonged to my mother-in-law. It spent a number of years in a nursery container just to keep it going until I had a place for it. Then, about ten years ago I decided to “bonsai” it instead and it has been...

As winter approaches I thought I would post a "heads up" for those newer bonsai enthusiasts who live in the north. Last winter I lost a fine (read expensive) lotus pot to the ice. The pot was high-temperature fired and should have been impervious. It would have been except the upper rim of...

I had this wheel barrel that served me well for years. But it was getting rusty and the barrel got a large tear from too much flexing which reduced its usefulness considerably. So I bought a new one just like it. That was some time ago. Much to my wife’s vexation I didn’t throw the old one...

Just a quick question. Do you take yamadori to mean anything dug up from the wild or just the older, more venerable trees? Does any one know how the Japanese use the word.

My most reliable report on the coldest temperature last winter came from a neighbor three houses down. He saw 16 below zero one night. There were probably nights it got colder. I winter my less hardy trees in an unheated shed that is partially below grade and well insulated with snow. I...

Until relatively recently I did not take the time to keep good records of my trees or take pictures of them. I regret that now and am trying to do a better job of it. But I have run into a problem. How do you all identify your trees? For example, I started out with records for oak #1...

Here is a picture of many of my trees taken on April 10, 2014. I winter them over at that place in my back yard on purpose because it invariably drifts over, burying them in a nice comfy blanket of snow. But this is ridiculous! This winter we set a record for the most snow ever. And we are...

In a recent thread on the weeping style, GrimLore brought up an interesting point. Should the longevity of a species be a consideration in its suitability for bonsai? I have had occasion to ask a number of bonsai professionals a related question over the last few years: “Does life in a bonsai...

At a show I went to a while ago one of the top prize winners was a sumo pine that was a perfect pyramid, with the base about the same width as the height at 15 inches. From the front it was flawless but from the back you could see that a full half of the tree was an angled chop that had hardly...

I just got my ABS Journal today and saw the cover picture of Brian Van Fleet's Naka Award winning Hawthorn. Awesome tree! I think the judges got this award right. I'm gald you are a regular here Brian.

At a club event last weekend a young woman asked me how long it takes to make a bonsai tree. I said there is no fixed answer to that because it depends on so many different factors. That is my standard reply. It's a question we all get. But she pressed me for an estimate so I gave it some...

This is BNut posting as Gene to see if I can fix his account.

I got my ABS Journal the other day and I must admit the guy wires on the magnificent Hinoki on the cover bothered me. It would have been so easy to photoshop them out. As long as it is only background stuff and nothing on the tree itself was changed, I would have no objections. One should...

Below are pictures of two white birch trees (Betula papyrifera) that I collected in the spring of 2011. They were in sandy soil so it was easy to preserve most of the root systems. They were chopped and immediately planted in the ground at my home. In the April of 2012 I transplanted them...

It looks like I will be driving from Mobile Alabama to Baltimore Maryland in early March. I am thinking of going by way of the Smokey Mountain National Park and the Blue Ridge Highway since I have never seen either. What I am wondering is if there are any bonsai related places along that route...