My trees!

[justBonsai]

I've been doing bonsai for 3 years now and have been expanding both my knowledge and material at a rapid rate. Bonsai by far is my biggest passion and I don't think I enjoy anything else quite as much. I'm grateful to be able to grow and develop many trees and hope that I will be able to do so in the future.

Here are most of my trees and ongoing projects I have right now:

My bench built a few days ago:

First up a semi-cascade procumbens juniper. This is a house of bonsai tree, made from one of those mass produced procumbens. I styled and wired it recently from a green bush. Plan is to let it grow unrestricted for a year to recover from styling and to refine foliage. Later I'll give some of my tree designated threads.

Twisty kishu shimpaku from Chikugo-en purchased at last Bonsai-a-thon. Needs to be pruned and wired.

Seiju elm clump. This began as a small tree in a 4 inch square that I let grow unrestricted for the past 3 years. They bark up and grow fast. Late summer I airlayed the branches and a few days ago repotted them together. Some of the roots broke on one of the airlayers when I put together the composition but should be fine given that seiju's can root very easily from cutting. To be safe I may spray some fungicide and bag up this tree when it warms up to help recovery.

Standard acer palmatum clump. Was separated from a forest planting and allowed to grow on its own. This year the tree grew exceptionally well and the base is fusing together. Will do a cut back and minor wiring soon

Small coast live oak. Purchased from Mr. Pressler's nursery over a year ago. The tree was initially 4-5 feet tall. It was chopped back last spring and began development of primary branching and the leader. The bones of the tree is set and will be cut back early next month for backbudding and further development of branching. Oaks develop very quickly here and the bark has already split due to swelling and growth. My inspiration for this tree is Eric Schrader's scrub oak and hope to have something similar over the next 5 years or so:

(Eric Schrader's tree, mine is below this one)

(Stolen from this thread: http://www.bonsainut.com/threads/2014-bib-display-planning.13774/ )

Next is the other half of the maple forest that I separated. Great nebari but the branching...not so much. Almost killed this tree 2 years ago with improper repotting when I didn't know any better. Not sure what I'm doing with this one and probably will make a thread to ask for suggestions:

Nice small maple from the original forest planting. This one has a good nebari and great bud+branch placement. I think this tree has good potential and will put more effort in developing it:

 

[justBonsai]

Taiwanese tiger bark ficus, purchased as small cutting grown plant from house of bonsai 3 years ago. The tree grew extremely fast and all the primary branching developed well. The nebari was terrible so I ground layered it last spring. The nebari is still under wraps as I'm developing aerial roots. Will do extensive cut backs after the roots are set. For now letting the tree grow out will help thicken the trunk and the ground layer work I started many months ago.

Small amur maple with a beefy round base. Airlayed off the top of my tree this past summer. Nice movement in all the branches and will make a killer shohin in the future:

Most of the base is covered and won't be exposed until I know the roots are strong.

Azalea from landscape plant. Nice 3 inch or so base and decent nebari. Might sell this one later if anyone is interested:

Multi-trunk hinoki. Still very rough right now. In my original thread on this tree some even recommended cutting off the third trunk as it cluttered the image. I think the problem was that I had the back trunk wired unnaturally in addition to being very close relative to the other 2. I increased spacing and the image improved significantly. Right now the foliage is still a mess and the image is very flat. After I improve my photography skills and do the next round of refinement a year from now I think the tree will look very nice, both in person and in picture.

Future shohin black pine I posted on here before. Got a killer deal for this tree. The large sacrifice has been removed and the topmost branch will replace it as the new sacrifice.

Large foemina. Got a decent air-layer off this tree and after 2 repotting cycles have the root ball fairly small. The tree will be allowed to grow freely for a year to start some primary branching. At then I will select my branching and begin training.

 

[justBonsai]

Large amur maple with "pancake" nebari. This is the tree that my amur air layer came from. The second layer is still in progress. I would have preferred to keep this as a taller tree but the entire backside is bare with no branching. I had considered grafting but it would take many years (more than I'm willing to invest) to make it look natural and balanced with the other primary branching which may be a decade or so old. The top branching has nice movement and after the layer is finished will become nice base material for a good tree. The lower half has wild nebari but no good branching. I will need to develop the branching from scratch but will have to wait until the top layer is ready for harvesting before I begin any work.

Large Hibari Elm. When I look for elms I look for trees with very good foliage characteristics. Many chinese elms and different cultivars will have coarse foliage with large teeth. I try to find trees that produce delicate leaves with very dense teeth. This tree produces foliage that is a bit more blueish green and is much more delicate than the standard chinese elm. Because of this it also produces fall color compared to my other chinese elms that either go from green to brown maybe with a little yellow. This tree is a little weird in that the trunk is fairly slim then swells up over an inch in girth in the middle. The airlayer is in progress but doesn't have many roots yet since I started it late. I will be pruning it back and styling it as a clump style tree.

That's a 4 inch+ base photographed:

Late last summer when I began the layer:

Hibari elm foliage on far right vs other chinese elm cultivars:

Fall color:

Large coast live oak. Will cut cut back in a month. If I get good backbudding I can set the rest of my primary branching and really begin getting this tree into shape:

Root over rock trident maple. I think is my very first tree, or among the first with the tiger bark ficus and procumbens. Doubled in size over the last 3 years and sat in the grown this past growing season season to thicken the trunk and develop primary branching. I will dig it out this week and begin branch development this season:

Washington Hawthorne. This tree is near bullet proof. It sat with the trident maple in a growing bed by an asphalt driveway that had full sun all the time. While the all the lower leaves turned brown on the trident maple this tree didn't flinch in 110 degree weather with searing asphalt on the side. Grew like mad with a year in the ground, probably the fastest growing tree I own. Not really sure what I'm going to do with this one and will make a thread later to ask for help.

 

[thumblessprimate1]

You have a lot of good stuff. I like especially your maples.

 

[iant]

Very nice trees!
It looks like you're well on your way. Do you have challenges with having enough space to develop all those trees? Any issues with heat and the Acer palmatums? I assume you do morning sun or shade cloth?
Ian

 

[justBonsai]

Very nice trees!
It looks like you're well on your way. Do you have challenges with having enough space to develop all those trees? Any issues with heat and the Acer palmatums? I assume you do morning sun or shade cloth?
Ian

Before the bench I just stacked everything and put it on the ground. It was horrendous and extremely messy. Now that I have a bench I try to maximize the space so I use all shelving, behind and below the bench. I'm in the process of building a second smaller bench for my maples that will be placed in a cooler part of the garden. My first year growing acer palmatums was really bad. Poor health, sun scald, wind drying up leaves. I thought they were going to croak but they pulled through. 2 years later they are strong. In my current location I use shade cloth but I will be relocating the trees to a cooler location all together.

 

[justBonsai]

Found some before pictures:

Trident maple


Seiju elm


Maple forest, you can see how unhealthy the foliage looks. During this growing season it didn't even drop leaves during winter until the end of January.

 

[justBonsai]

A lot of my stock comes from San Gabriel Nursery. If you search their prebonsai stuff, things in nursery cans not pots you can find really good deals. Every time I visit I'm tempted to buy something.

 

[petegreg]

Pleased to meet them. Very nice collection, I like the style and species variability.

 

[Bolero]

What kind of animal is that on your bench in 2nd picture ? It has a Raccoon tail, Cat fur coloring and cant tell about the head ...???

You mentioned San Gabriel......Lived there for a year once in the 1960's, beautiful area with the Mountains and all..., moved to Costa Mesa, then LA, Pasadena, then back to Michigan...

Oh the stories I could tell...

 

[justBonsai]

What kind of animal is that on your bench in 2nd picture ? It has a Raccoon tail, Cat fur coloring and cant tell about the head ...???

You mentioned San Gabriel......Lived there for a year once in the 1960's, beautiful area with the Mountains and all..., moved to Costa Mesa, then LA, Pasadena, then back to Michigan...

Oh the stories I could tell...

It's a cat....a typical tabby breed. A little on the big side though lol.

 

[sorce]

This is the tree that my amur air layer came from. The second layer is still in progress. I

Hey Bleumeon..

I had a layer fail on these, though not in a healthy year....

Any notes on success?

Sorce

 

[justBonsai]

Hey Bleumeon..

I had a layer fail on these, though not in a healthy year....

Any notes on success?

Sorce

Top layer appears successful as buds are showing out, although not as fast as the parent tree. There was a decent amount of roots when I separated the layer so I'm hoping it will be fine.

The middle layer has some roots when I took a peak but not enough for separation. I'll have to wait till early summer or fall to separate it assuming I have a good amount of roots.

 

[just.wing.it]

Great stuff dude!

 

[justBonsai]

Thanks, really need to post some updates or progressions but I've been incredibly busy with work and school. Oaks were cut back 3-4 weeks ago. Small oak showing a really good profusion of back-budding. Big oak still good budding, but could use more. I have the trees tented and as soon as temps start warming up the heat and humidity will give me better budding.

I still need to thicken the apex on the small oak more, but if I left the leader while only cutting back the side branches I risk dieback with the tree prioritizing only the leader. I reduced the 3 foot leader to a bit under 1 foot and cut back everything else hard. After I establish good secondary branching and buds I will let the apex run free again to finish thickening the top of the tree. Good progress in only 2 years--coast live oaks grow very fast.

On the small oak pretty much every branch I cut back to is covered in buds--There are a lot of tiny ones you can't see in this picture that have began extending recently.


On the big oak I have a lot of buds on the base of all the big stubs and some small ones at the side of my front stub. These all can be used to build the future branch structure. Ideally I would have preferred buds to form on the branches I cut back to. If I do not get better budding I will approach graft branches to those stubs--worst case scenario I forgoe those stubs completely and just building the branching from the ground up. All the side branching on this oak was done in 1 year.

 

[justBonsai]

Pruning of coarse growth as well as re positioning of trunk. Branch structure will need to be developed from scratch. Because there is no way I can put natural movement in the straight trunk I opted for an angle change with a slight lean. We'll see how this one develops over the season

 

[sorce]

Top layer appears successful as buds are showing out, although not as fast as the parent tree. There was a decent amount of roots when I separated the layer so I'm hoping it will be fine.

The middle layer has some roots when I took a peak but not enough for separation. I'll have to wait till early summer or fall to separate it assuming I have a good amount of roots.

What did you use?

Timing?

Thanks bro!

Sorce

 

[justBonsai]

What did you use?

Timing?

Thanks bro!

Sorce

Living in Southern California we have a really long growing season. I picked up the amur pretty late, around mid summer and started the layer end of July. I cleaned the girdle very thoroughly and scrubbed with rubbing alcohol. As a secondary measure against re-bridging I twisted some wires around the xylem. I did the layers simultaneously--the top layer with a lot of growth put out roots quickly, but the bottom layer with significantly less foliage hardly put out any. I think strong growth helps a lot with putting out roots.

Top layer I used sphagnum--because of the unusual shape of the area I was layering and the branches in my way I could not fit a pot with bonsai soil. Bottom layer is pumice fines with sphagnum on the top to retain moisture.

 

[GGB]

A nice lot, hoping to be around you level by year 3

 

[justBonsai]

A nice lot, hoping to be around you level by year 3

Yeah, bonsai has gotten a lot more exciting this year! The first 2 years was a lot of establish the trees, getting good growth, and building roots. I've been able to do a lot more styling this year and it's fun.

Buds are there! Just really tiny. I have no idea how approach grafting will work on stubs with on active growth. I'm hoping that as long as its live tissue it will work? What I should of done originally was cut back the big branches at the first repot--the tree was not healthy though and had a borer infestation. At worst the tree would not have had energy so back bud so who knows what was right. Being impatient last growing season and cutting back mid summer was a mistake--I did have a small bud form but it was fried in the heat. Will be more patient with this on this season.