Louisiana Day of Bonsai Hosted by Bonsai Northshore

This was really one of my first real visits to a local bonsai show and I must say it was excellent.  I really enjoyed talking to the people and seeing all the great trees at the show.  Guy Guidry is a great artist, but more importantly, he’s a hospitable person.  He welcomed everyone into his backyard and asked them to stay as long as they wished.  There were several bonsai workshops, including one working on a monstrous bald cypress where his nephew and son were wiring for a few hours.  I managed to take some pictures, but unfortunately, my camera died really early in the day.  I did get some video of the bonsai competitions, but I haven’t been able to edit it yet.  His nursery was really spectacular and I thought the prices were reasonable. Here’s a gallery of the bonsai trees that I did manage to get.  These were on display for judging by everyone that attended.  The kingsville boxwood won.

Three New Junipers

I decided to try my hand at junipers with the addition of these 3 Chinese junipers to my bonsai collection.  I’ve pruned all three to a point where I left enough branching to make decisions later about the final design.  Depending on the way each of them back-buds, I’m hoping that at least one starts showing promise as a viable bonsai sometime next year.  Junipers are really tough and can be repotted in the fall because they experience some renewed root growth right before going into dormancy.

It was also an experience into the bonsai world of shari and jin which was very interesting.  At first, you are certain you are killing the tree by peeling off that much bark, but all of them have showed no signs of slowed growth, and the branching around the scars have not shown signs of being wounded or stressed.  My plan is to let the scars dry out till next summer when I will treat them with a lime-sulphur solution.

Juniper Bonsai #1

Juniper Bonsai #2

Juniper Bonsai #3

Hurricanes and Bonsai

Being in the South, we’re often faced with the threat of one or several hurricanes in a year. Several days of wind and rain pound your trees performing a pruning and defoliating action on your trees by mother nature herself. It’s tough to see something you watch and care for go through this, but all in all, as long as it doesn’t get too bad, I think it’s good for them. I may change my mind one day when a major branch is broken, but for now, I leave them out to toughen them against the forces of nature.

Plant-Care.com has a good article on Hurricanes and houseplants, and the lessons we can learn from them. It goes over the differences between your indoor potted plants and your outdoor landscape plants. Click here to read the article.

Technorati Tags: bonsai, weather, indoor bonsai

Chinese Elm from Schley’s Bonsai

I have wanted to buy a bonsai from a bonsai nursery for a while now to see what kind of quality I would get and to see what the shipping process is like. I started looking for bonsai nurseries in my area to keep shipping costs low, make sure the trees were already adapted to our zone, and to support the local bonsai trade. The closest to me is still about 4 hours away so shipping was my only option. Two really stuck out to me as far as quality and price. Schley’s Bonsai in Florida and Brussell’’s Bonsai in North Mississippi.

There are three different trees that I have considered buying. A hornbeam (Korean or American), a Trident Maple, and a Chinese Elm. After looking around, I decided on a chinese elm from Schley’s would be a good compromise between cost and quality. It also helped that out of the people I contacted, they were the most helpful and sent me pictures of individual bonsai when I requested them.

The chinese elm I finally picked was perfect for a style that I don’t have in my bonsai collection, which is a broom. It has a nice start on some nebari (surface roots), a slightly slanting trunk, and some nice twiggy branching. It was sent in a small 6″ pot. I immediately repotted it without touching the roots in a bigger pot so I could encourage a lot of new growth. In the early spring, I’ll prune some of the out of place branches and cut back some of the growth. Here it is:

Here it is after repotting.

Technorati Tags: bonsai, chinese elm

Fertilizing Bonsai

I tend to love fertilizing days. It seems like I’m nurturing the tree and providing everything that it needs. We all want our pre-bonsai trees to grow at their maximum growth rate and we want to make sure our bonsai trees stay at their best.

I have several fertilizer types that I use on my trees. For in-ground trees, I use all organic fertilizers. I love Plant-tone All-purpose organic which contains a mixture of organic components (blood meal, feather meal, manure, crab meal, etc.) to give your trees a complete nutritional buffet with a 5-3-3 nitrogen/phosphorus/potassium mixture. I also have started using Terraform worm pellets and Terraform liquid fertilizer. The worm pellets are pretty inexpensive if the recommended rates of feeding are right. One $8 bottle is going to last me a couple of years. The liquid version is the exact opposite. I spent one $8 bottle in one feeding.

For potted trees, I’m using a variety of inorganic fertilizers right now. Miracle-Grow Bloom Booster (15-30-15), All-Purpose (24-8-16), and Miracid (30-10-10). I know many people who use Miracle-Gro fertilizers on their bonsai and swear by them. I have compared them to other liquid fertilizers and they do tend to pack more micro-nutrients that the tree needs. I just haven’t been able to find another that compares. It’s immediate, I haven’t had any problems with it burning, and it’s very easy to apply once you get your system of fertlizing down. I am thinking of trying some of my organics with my potted trees following some advice that I got at a bonsai forum, and I’ll wait and see what kind of results I get out of that.

For a much more general article on fertilizing your bonsai, check out this article. Technorati Tags: fertilizing bonsai, bonsai, organic

Nice Kingsville Boxwood on eBay

There’s a nice mame (very small) Kingsville Boxwood bonsai tree on eBay right now. The bid at this point is $53 which would be a good price for a tree of this caliber. Check it out.

Link

Finding that perfect pot

Bonsai is a tree in a pot. A lot of people focus on the tree, and forget about a major component of the display, the pot. A mediocre bonsai can be greatly improved sitting the perfect bonsai pot. Where can you get those one-of-a-kind pots that everyone will ask about? I’ve linked a couple of American potters that are highly recommended by bonsai artists and a couple where you can get pots from the famous Tokoname region of China where they have been making pots for hundreds of years from the special clay there:

Sara Rayner’s Bonsai Pottery

Wild Things Bonsai Studio

BonsaiMonk.com

Dallas Bonsai

From time to time, you can also find some really nice pots on eBay since it’s very easy for potters to sell their creations there.

Iker Pottery Works and Bonsai

Oriental Arts and Furniture

Maiban Bonsai

That should get you started. Pots can tell a more interesting story than the bonsai tree itself in some cases, so take your time while you perfect your bonsai tree to find the perfect pot.

The Taiwan Bonsai Creator Association Exhibition

The 11th annual Taiwan Bonsai Creator Association Exhibition was held July 5th through the 7th.  Min Hsuan Lo’s blog has a lot of great photos of the 103 bonsai on display.

http://www.knowledgeofbonsai.org/min_hsuan_lo/?cat=11

Bonsai Contests

As a beginner, I am not yet confident enough to make an entry into a bonsai contest yet. Achieving the balance, symmetry, and proportion that a trained judge’s eye is going to look for is not something that can be learned overnight. I do enjoy following the contests though, because they can be a good learning experience. Right now, there is a couple of forums running contests that would be easy (and free) to enter or just to watch and learn from.

The Knowledge of Bonsai Progressive Styling Contest

The contest objective is to obtain stock and style it into a presentable bonsai within the time frame allotted by the rules below. In order to include all levels of enthusiasts and all levels of stock, we have created a professional and a non-professional category and sub-divided these into different stock categories. There is no price limit on stock.

Before photographs of the stock must be received no later than midnight (CST or GMT -5) July 31, 2008 in order to enter the contest.

http://knowledgeofbonsai.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=111&t=2589

BonsaiSite.com “Create a tree that mimics nature” contest

You must have a photo of a tree in nature you wish to mimic, then search for nursery stock from a non-bonsai nursery to use to mimic your photograph of nature. You may also use seedlings you grew yourself, rescued garden plants, and collected materials so long as no work has been done to them with the exception of a repotting. Do not collect the tree you are intending on mimicing!

Deadline for Initial picture submission of the tree you wish to mimic: December 31st, 2008
Deadline for submission of initial tree material you are using: May 31st, 2009

http://forums.bonsaisite.com/index.php?showtopic=15660

Ficus Microcarpa coming along

I have a couple of ficus microcarpa trees that were a part of the first pre-bonsai trees that I bought. This one in particular is my favorite. Ficus trees are really easy to take care of, grow profusely, and can survive many beginner mistakes.  They are tropical, so you have to keep them indoors in the winter.  Under a good florescent light, they will continue to grow nicely.  Here’s a progression of one tree over the past few months.

The above picture is right after it was freshly repotted in late February.  I potted it in orchid mix, which at the time was the best soil I could find that would be fast draining and help the roots to flourish.

After a lot of growth, I started having problems with fungus gnats in the soil.  So, I repotted in a mixture of 50/50 turface and pine bark mulch.  I also did an extensive branch prune due to many branches coming out of the same spot on the trunk, causing bulbous pertrusions.

Unfortunately, between nature and I, this tree has seen a break.  Birds snapped some of the branches, then proceeded to defoliate the rest of the tree.  It has really proven to be a good thing in this specific case.  The branches that are sprouting are in much better places and will provide better balance for the informal upright style that I was shooting for.  I continue to hope this will be one the best bonsai trees in my collection one day.  It’s one of the first trees that people notice when looking at the different varieties on my deck.