What are you trying/doing that’s new, uncommon, or unusual?

[pandacular]

If you're liking the red alder @pandacular , see if you can find sitka alder. Look for more serrated/shiny-waxy leaves. I often find lots of seedlings of this species growing in straight pumice along creeks at higher elevations (~4000ft), it feels like an alder that might like pond basket life in an urban setting and bonsai horticulture.

Funny you should mention this, as I recently dug a few from Olympic National forest. I was inspired by your advice to work on youngadori, so I got me a few as my first shot at collecting.

 

[afleischer]

A couple years ago I decided to try the top-down method that Tom Fincel lectured about from this video here:

Manzanita have a reputation of not liking their roots played with so I thought they would be a great test subject for this method. I had two medium sized manzanitas in nursery containers to which I removed the top half of the soil and replaced with my bonsai mix. It's been a couple years so this spring I'll remove the bottom half and transfer to a smaller pot and see how it goes.

 

[Cruiser]

I'm growing populus trichocarpa. One of my teachers (Andrew Robson) is diving into p. trichocarpa as well, so with his much larger collected trunks and superior growing setup / skills I hope we can more quickly figure out what can be expected from cottonwood in terms of making and keeping nice detailed branches.

Following the spirit of @Cruiser 's thread, some notes.

Black cottonwood (and probably the close-ish relatives like eastern cottonwood and fremont cottonwood and other poplars) is more technically challenging to figure out than a species like Japanese Maple. I would mainly grow it if you have a strong personal love for these species in the natural environment (eg: high desert cottonwoods for me) and I wouldn't grow it if your priority is a highly-predictable response from techniques learned on other species. In populus there are better leaf shapes (trembling aspen, black poplar, fremont cottonwood, eastern cottonwood all have nicer leaf shapes with more stable morphology). Similar to black pine, it takes a lot of ramification and maturing in a black cottonwood to get the leaf size and leaf shape to stabilize globally. Leaf shape is strongly affected by local vigor. Mature leaves look like wide/stumpy aspen leaves. Immature/vigorous leaves look like skinny/elongated willow leaves. So IMO this species is better if you are after a winter display, especially in the earlier years. One interesting side note is that this species is found all over the planet even though it's a US west coast native. If you are in northern europe you're probably never far from a black cottonwood that you could propagate via cuttings (check the iNaturalist map). They even have them in Iceland.

Growth stuff:

- Cuttings of all shapes and sizes will root at various times of year. 1 inch cuttings, 48 inch cuttings. Or a 5 foot branch chopped into 1-2 inch cuttings like a sausage.
- Full defoliation works well at stimulating a robust response, even on cuttings
- Partial defoliation (whether leaf removal or leaf cutting) works less well at stimulating a robust response
- Barking up to the rougher form happens fast
- Wounds close quickly if the tree is vigorous, kirikuchi works
- Pinching works and I can pinch continuously through a summer
- Sucker growth is a danger to canopy sustainability, esp. in the 12-24 months after a major stress (post-collection, big cutback, etc). The longer in training the less suckers are an issue. Suckers must be removed or aggressively pinched as they happen
- Balancing out your work generally (pruning/wiring/pinching intensities vs. leftover extensions) so that strong parts don't weaken weak parts is key

If you're liking the red alder @pandacular , see if you can find sitka alder. Look for more serrated/shiny-waxy leaves. I often find lots of seedlings of this species growing in straight pumice along creeks at higher elevations (~4000ft), it feels like an alder that might like pond basket life in an urban setting and bonsai horticulture.

This year I rooted a bucket of populus nigra (black poplar), which seems to root from cuttings easily much like cottonwood does. These are found all over the PNW and the trunk bases are usually covered with basal suckers so it's easy to harvest cuttings for forests.

Good work. Thanks for the detailed write up. This type of analysis and experimentation is what’s needed for many species.

 

[Cruiser]

A couple years ago I decided to try the top-down method that Tom Fincel lectured about from this video here:

Manzanita have a reputation of not liking their roots played with so I thought they would be a great test subject for this method. I had two medium sized manzanitas in nursery containers to which I removed the top half of the soil and replaced with my bonsai mix. It's been a couple years so this spring I'll remove the bottom half and transfer to a smaller pot and see how it goes.

It will be interesting to see how they respond. Hopefully they like the new mix.

 

[eugenev2]

Does creating bonsai from seed count?

I guess the uncommon part comes in when you say baobab, kumquat and dwarf pomegranate.

Plus i have so many of these Mulberries that are volunteering for bonsai duty...i might as well try...variety morus nigra i think. Just took a picture of one...to many to put into pots

 

[Kievnstavick]

Baobabs for us in the states are unusual. I have 4 growing with a few hundred seeds to grow more from.

How common are Baobab Bonsai in SA? I know Jason and Willow Bonsai are growing them.

Here are two of my baobabs from May 31st. I can't wait to take a new set of pictures in a month or two. My short and squat Baobab has gotten noticeably thicker this summer. I walked by it last week and my first thought on examining it was "Holy crap, this Boi got thick."

 

[Kievnstavick]

Pictured is one of my seed trays that will properly get divided either in the fall or early spring.

The middle row contains Cercidiphyllum japonicum aka Katsura. There is a surprising lack of this species trained as bonsai. So they are slightly uncommon. On the left is Princess Persimmon and the right is Zelkova (and a weed).

I can safely say there is a few hundred seedlings here lol

 

[shohin_branches]

Sorry I can't focus on one single thing. I'm a generalist I want to know everything.

I've been digging a lot of invasives like buckthorn, burning bush, and forsythia. I was not very inspired working with burning bush. Creating an interest in removing invasives and giving people the information they need to collect invasives is fun.

I have also been having a lot of success propagating fairly large Thuja occidentalis cuttings in my aeroponic cloning machine so I'm going to start digging deeper into that. My real goal is having more success propagating larches from cuttings. I've had a lot of success keeping Japanese and American Larch cuttings alive for months but still waiting on roots.

I'm hoping to eventually make some themed shohin displays around natives and invasives.

 

[eugenev2]

Baobabs for us in the states are unusual. I have 4 growing with a few hundred seeds to grow more from.

How common are Baobab Bonsai in SA? I know Jason and Willow Bonsai are growing them.

Here are two of my baobabs from May 31st. I can't wait to take a new set of pictures in a month or two. My short and squat Baobab has gotten noticeably thicker this summer. I walked by it last week and my first thought on examining it was "Holy crap, this Boi got thick."

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Surprisingly more uncommon than you would think, but i think it's because they require more specialized care than say monkey thorns. Monkey thorns you can essentially get from any store with a "bonsai" section

 

[pandacular]

I have also been having a lot of success propagating fairly large Thuja occidentalis cuttings

have you tried any air layers? seems like they would layer very well for a conifer.

 

[Brain Treez]

As far as "unusual"goes, I have several Golden Weeping Boxwoods (Buxus sempervirens 'Aurea Pendula') that appear to be a cultivar mostly unexplored for bonsai. Humorously enough, it was @Cruiser's own thread on a tree (since sold) that was the lone evidence online that bonsai had ever been attempted with them. I have them in various different kinds of training pots, and at various stages of cutback to see how they react. Growth habit is twisty, curved, and wild. I wish the leaves were smaller.

 

[Kanorin]

I've got about a dozen serviceberries (Am. arborea) from little seedlings from the conservation department to collected yamadori with 5 inch trunks. That's the "uncommon" species that I'm going hardest on at the moment. Also dabbling with American Plum, Mexican plum, Acer rubrum, Freemasoni maple (red x silver hybrid maples), Populus tremuloides, Pinus echinata, American hornbeam, and hop-hornbeam.

 

[Wood]

I've been digging a lot of invasives like buckthorn, burning bush, and forsythia. I was not very inspired working with burning bush. Creating an interest in removing invasives and giving people the information they need to collect invasives is fun.

I vociferously applaud the effort to remove invasives from the landscape, but I go back and forth on whether or not it's ecologically good to turn them into bonsai. Part of why they're invasive is because they're so good at escaping cultivation and proliferating. And if you do the bonsai work well enough, aren't you going to inspire people to seek out more of that species?

Then again, you can get some reaaaaal nice trunks out of old hedges...

 

[Tieball]

I am working on deciduous trees with significant deadwood….in particular American Elm trees. I have fringe forests around me that have trees damaged from storms and other threatening situations…Woodpecker invasions….insects….freeze and thaw cycles. The exact cause of the damage is unknown but the results are an exciting reality to me. The trees survive. The trees shed secondary branching. The trees leave a dead framework on half the tree. Half of the tree dies off while the other side continues to grow. These will not be show-worthy trees to the serious bonsai developer. However, for those who seriously appreciate real life tree damage, these trees can be interesting. The example here, photographed from different sides, is just beginning the process of natural deadwood discoloration. Over the winter months ahead the untreated deadwood will continue to mellow to a natural American Elm deadwood gray color. The base of the trunk is 3” (8cm) and the total height 21” (54cm). The root pad is 2” (5cm) in height and 8” (20cm) in circular diameter.

 

[shohin_branches]

have you tried any air layers? seems like they would layer very well for a conifer.

I have two massive old Thuja in my yard but the branches sag easily. Not a lot of good candidates for air layering unless I try to climb to the top

 

[shohin_branches]

I vociferously applaud the effort to remove invasives from the landscape, but I go back and forth on whether or not it's ecologically good to turn them into bonsai. Part of why they're invasive is because they're so good at escaping cultivation and proliferating. And if you do the bonsai work well enough, aren't you going to inspire people to seek out more of that species?

Then again, you can get some reaaaaal nice trunks out of old hedges...

Think about how many yamadori beginners kill learning how to properly dig up and give aftercare. In Milwaukee we have been doing club yamadori digs for the last four years and have removed hundreds of invasive burning bush from the woods of a county park (with permission). None of mine have regrown berries since their hard chops, and the guy I know with the thick trunk burning bushes doesn't even have berries on his. Massive yard shrubs and garden centers still selling them are the issue, not carefully monitored bonsai.

Here are my friend's massive burning bush bonsai in the front row. 3-4 years and still no berries. Some of them have been counted at 40 years old at the chop point.

 

[MaciekA]

I have also been having a lot of success propagating fairly large Thuja occidentalis cuttings in my aeroponic cloning machine so I'm going to start digging deeper into that. My real goal is having more success propagating larches from cuttings. I've had a lot of success keeping Japanese and American Larch cuttings alive for months but still waiting on roots.

I'm growing some thuja seedlings which came from seeds dropped by full-size thujas next to my house. So far I have had a smooth and predictable response for a few things that might interest you for shohin development

- Compressing aggressively with wire early on when the whole tree is just a skinny shoot thinner than a BB. I wait to do major compression or aggressive wiring until summer heat dies off. So far so good.
- Using a shari knife and adding a shari line to opposite sides of the same trunk line. Sharis start to heal fast after being added so I think I will get frequent opportunities to widen the shari. I've done this work in August. If I plan to do shari + wiring the same year, the wiring waits till cool temps
- No problems with lots of fertilizer at small size,
- Aggressively pinching fronds throughout the growing season to develop tiny shohin/mame branch structures while growing a "poodle" style leader up into the sky seems to work. The strong leader doesn't weaken the pinched fronds too much (it diverges in vigor so you still gotta keep an eye on things though). Although it seems that I can pinch thuja as hard as a yellow cedar (i.e. pinch all green tips hard), I don't go this far with my tiny thujas. I just pinch away enough to leave some untouched frond tippage to continue growing and with an eye towards ramification, kinda like pinching itoigawa/kishu where if pinching at the frond level, you only pinch the strong stuff and leave bifurcating tips on fronds

I grow them in a mix of small-grain pumice and akadama. I just stacked one (in a coffee mug sized container) on top of another tall container of coarse pumiceto see how it does with root escape (now that I've got a line established).

I am only working with the western redcedar (thuja plicata) and it seems strong. I have a feeling the arborvitae genetics from landscape growers might be a lot stronger and more happy to respond to pinching (look how they respond to hedging), but I haven't tried. I'm interested in hearing how it goes for you.

 

[Sixty’s]

I believe the weirdest thing I do is to add carbohydrates to my trees every now and then. The thought behind it is to convert Inorganic nutrients into organic nutrients that later will be slowly released again as inorganic nutrients via bacteria, keeping the nutrients for longer near the roots.

 

[shohin_branches]

I also have a Siberian Elm root cutting that put out some beautiful variegation. I'm trying to keep the strength in the variegated branch so I can eventually propagate it and hope it stays fairly stable.

 

[Cruiser]

I am working on deciduous trees with significant deadwood….in particular American Elm trees. I have fringe forests around me that have trees damaged from storms and other threatening situations…Woodpecker invasions….insects….freeze and thaw cycles. The exact cause of the damage is unknown but the results are an exciting reality to me. The trees survive. The trees shed secondary branching. The trees leave a dead framework on half the tree. Half of the tree dies off while the other side continues to grow. These will not be show-worthy trees to the serious bonsai developer. However, for those who seriously appreciate real life tree damage, these trees can be interesting. The example here, photographed from different sides, is just beginning the process of natural deadwood discoloration. Over the winter months ahead the untreated deadwood will continue to mellow to a natural American Elm deadwood gray color. The base of the trunk is 3” (8cm) and the total height 21” (54cm). The root pad is 2” (5cm) in height and 8” (20cm) in circular diameter.

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Nice work.
Do you plan on letting this trees’s deadwood rot? Or carving to expedite things? A large cavity extending up the trunk would look great.

These will not be show-worthy trees to the serious bonsai developer.

I hope this changes, maybe it already has in some circles.
Some of us are very much into bonsai that accurately showcase the damage-regrowth cycles wild trees go through