Bonsai tree: Bonsai maintenance

Source: Bonsai Tonight
Bonsai maintenance

I find mid-summer to late fall to be an interesting time of year in bonsai. It’s a good time for the little tasks – the maintenance work. In cooler seasons, I can bring one or two trees to a workshop that will keep me busy all day. This time of year, I tend to load up many trees and spend just a few minutes with each. This month was no exception. My winterberry, for example, has been growing vigorously, but big cutback isn’t scheduled until the end of the growing season. For now, I’m content to remove a few unnecessary branches and wire the new shoots.

Winterberry

Late spring is a good time to work on satsuki. My small azalea has grown dense since spring so I thinned out the new shoots.

Satsuki azalea

My Yaupon holly has budded back wonderfully this year. Like I did for the winterberry, I removed a few unnecessary branches and wired the new shoots. Major cutback will come later.

Yaupon holly

Not everyone in the workshop busied themselves with such mundane tasks. Here is one of the three ficus that received a basic styling while I was busy with my trees. What a fun project!

Ficus

I also had a chance to partially defoliate my trident maple. I’d hoped to do this work a month ago, but August has been cool and my trees have been growing slowly. Instead of removing all of the tree’s leaves this late in the season, I removed a lot of the growth at the ends of the branches and all of the big leaves.

Trident maple

New leaves revealed after removing the large leaves

Half-way done

Partial defoliation complete

Watching the interior shoots make slow progress has made me wonder about taking a more radical approach next year. Although I have plenty of time to consider what I’ll do with the tree next spring, I’m already looking forward to seeing what will happen.

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Bonsai tree: Japanese Winterberry – fall work

Source: Bonsai Tonight
Japanese Winterberry – fall work

Most deciduous trees share the same story this time of year – remove old leaves, cutback, and wire. Doing this work gets trees ready for spring.

I’ve been working on the Japanese Winterberry (ilex serrata) below for several years now. Most of the young branches are new to the tree, and will require a number of years more before they’re ready for show.

Japanese winterberry in fall

I begin by removing the old leaves. Although there’s plenty of new growth, most will be cut away to encourage ramification and taper.

After stripping the leaves

After cutback

I left a few of the branches long – these will be cut when the tree is wired.

After wiring

The tree doesn’t look like much at this point. There is a nice trunk, but little branching and tree is sorely need of an apex. In the coming years I’ll let a few branches near the apex grow to ease the transition between trunk and apex. Once the apex is large enough, I can cut the stub of the current apex away, creating a much more refined-looking tree. Read more!

Bonsai tree: Developing Japanese winterberry

Spring work for this small ilex serrata is straight forward. I want the primary branches to thicken so I let them run. Aluminum wire helps them set in place.

Japanese winterberry – before

Japanese winterberry – after

If you look closely, you can see that the apex is much smaller than the main part of the trunk. It will take several years for the apex to catch up, so I expect to let it run for some time.
I’ll need to pay close attention over the coming weeks to ensure the wire doesn’t cut in. Scars heal slowly on deciduous hollies and the branches can swell quickly. Read more!