Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven. ~Rabindranath Tagore, Fireflies, 1928
Southern Bonsai Blog
Blog about lessons learned growing bonsai in the South
"What I like about bonsai is that it has a beginning but no end. A bud today becomes a branch tomorrow. --John Y. Naka
400-Year-Old Bonsai
Interesting report on a Japanese White Pine at the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum in Washington by VOANews.com.
Lindsay Farr’s World of Bonsai Series 2
I just got finished watching the first episode of Lindsay Farr’s World of Bonsai Series 2 and this series continues to be fascinating (I’m a little behind since it was posted 6 months ago). I think anyone who loves bonsai should be following this series and watching the videos. I encourage everyone to head over to Vimeo and subscribe to this series and watch the episodes that have already been released. If you haven’t watched World of Bonsai Series 1, then you have a lot of catching up to do, but it will be well worth your time.
http://www.bonsaifarm.tv is the World of Bonsai web site, and here is a list of all of Lindsay Farr’s videos on Vimeo.
Let it snow!
In most areas of the country, snow is simply a part of winter. In the South, however, it *may* come once per year and most of the time that doesn’t stick to the ground. We had a really good snow this year though, and for some of my bonsai, it was their first time to deal with it. We got about 4 inches a few weeks ago (yes, I’m just getting around to blogging about it), but even with that much, it was gone by lunch. Nevertheless, here’s some pictures.
Juniper in snow
Bonsai bench in snow
Air Layering Resources
Bonsai Bark did a nice series in the past couple of months on air-layering. If you have mature yard trees, a well-developed branch you need to remove, or would like the chance to start over with your nebari, then air-layering is definitely something to look into. Here’s the links:
A Simple Air-layering Technique Part 1
A Simple Air-layering Technique Part 2
A Simple Air-layering Technique Part 3
Here’s an explanation of the process and why it works over at EverGreen Garden Works: What is Air Layering?
Some other resources:
Layering Techniques for Bonsai
Airlayering by the Texas Agriculture Extension Office
If you have any other resources about air layering and it’s relationship with bonsai, send me the links and I’ll add them to this post.
Shin-Boku – Japanese Garden Trees
This site is really amazing and something I was reading about at Stone Lantern’s Blog called Bonsai Bark. Shin-Boku Nurseries create specimen garden trees and the images are incredible. If a person wasn’t standing beside the tree, I would think it was a bonsai, and I guess technically, it is.
Shin-Boku Specimen Pine
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