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[Japonicus]

Harvested some cuttings.
7 "trees" 3 species from one pot.





Nobel fir, 5 Kishu cuttings and a sekka honiki cutting from 2020.

 

[Lorax7]

Sifted I don’t know how many gallons of soil components…


I’m thinking I should buy a wireless headset and some spandex clothes and set about marketing soil sifting as the next fitness craze. It’s a heckuva cardio workout when you do it continuously for a while. I’m thinking if I call it “earth yoga” or something like that and get some Instagram influencers to pitch it, it’s sure to take off.

 

[snowman04]

I was out showering the trees and was pleased with the growth on my MT Hemlock:



Looking to do a shaping later this year...

 

[Cajunrider]

If I have to be honest, I’ve been doing this over several days (and I’m close but, not quite finished).
I’ve dug up and moved around 100 trees that I had fattening up in the ground. Not the best time for it but, my construction project was suddenly pushed (way) up and the trees had to go or be destroyed.
The varieties I’ve removed are Katsura, Paper Bark Birch, Beach Plum, Zelkova, Crab Apple, Flowering Cherry, Flowering Pear, Hardy Mimosa, Temple Juniper, White Spruce, Norway Spruce, Canadian Hemlock, Tamarack, Northern White Cedar, Atlantic White Cedar, Mugo Pine, Scots Pine, Japanese Black Pine, Japanese Red Pine, Pitch Pine, and Yew. It should be interesting to see which ones survive the shock and which ones wither. Here is some of them.View attachment 544398View attachment 544399
I don’t last as long on the end of a dummy-spoon as I used to but, just a few more Pitch Pine to go!

That is a lot of work. Much respect!

 

[Cajunrider]

Sifted I don’t know how many gallons of soil components…
View attachment 544438

I’m thinking I should buy a wireless headset and some spandex clothes and set about marketing soil sifting as the next fitness craze. It’s a heckuva cardio workout when you do it continuously for a while. I’m thinking if I call it “earth yoga” or something like that and get some Instagram influencers to pitch it, it’s sure to take off.

Shape sifter!

 

[IzzyG]

Been rotating trees in the cafe and decided to bring a rather large one in. Surprisingly it still looked great in the space.

 

[shohin_branches]

We had the group slash for the Milwaukee bonsai society. Each table gets a piece of nursery stock and we work together to do the initial style and we auction them off at the end of the meeting.
Here is what we started with.


I kept putting tools in my team member's hands and making them do the work. We had to remove a lot of branches and roots were coming off the main branches so the beginning was a struggle. We didn't have enough time to finish all the wiring. I think we got it started in a good direction. There was an option to put it in a pot too but we wanted it to stay healthy.


Then I went and volunteered to help get the Milwaukee Bonsai Foundation Collection ready for opening next weekend. I mostly worked on cleaning up and mossing this American larch that was donated by my mentor. I've been in love with this tree since I first saw it at age 14 and it's so cool that over two decades later I get to help maintain it.
Before

After methodically cleaning up dead needles with tweezers and mossing the tree.

 

[Carol 83]

Got to meet @NaoTK and Adair at the Bonsai Central show today. Super great people! I posted lots of pictures in the Bonsai Central thread Nao started. Didn't want to duplicate so many. But here is the Best Of Show Zelcova of Adair's.

 

[WavyGaby]

We had the group slash for the Milwaukee bonsai society. Each table gets a piece of nursery stock and we work together to do the initial style and we auction them off at the end of the meeting.
Here is what we started with.
View attachment 544489

I kept putting tools in my team member's hands and making them do the work. We had to remove a lot of branches and roots were coming off the main branches so the beginning was a struggle. We didn't have enough time to finish all the wiring. I think we got it started in a good direction. There was an option to put it in a pot too but we wanted it to stay healthy.
View attachment 544493

Then I went and volunteered to help get the Milwaukee Bonsai Foundation Collection ready for opening next weekend. I mostly worked on cleaning up and mossing this American larch that was donated by my mentor. I've been in love with this tree since I first saw it at age 14 and it's so cool that over two decades later I get to help maintain it.
Before View attachment 544502

After methodically cleaning up dead needles with tweezers and mossing the tree.
View attachment 544503

Great idea about the group effort styling. I'm always looking for new ideas for the BSOC meetings.
I worked on some 3 gal nursery procumbens


I need to apex and the primary to thicken so I left a bunch of foliage. Left side will get reduced in the future


A shimpaku I got at a club event two years ago. I had to wait for it to get healthy enough to style. It has great deadwood


Also, this one I developed from cutting about 2-2.5 years ago. I wired it last year and again this weekend

 

[Paradox]

Waxed my boat yesterday to get ready to put it in the water.

After starting the first week of this year's field work at work, I'm exhausted. Going to do nothing today and looking forward to it!
Well might throw some fertilizer around on the trees but that's it.

Picture tax
Double rainbow over the bay I took the week before last.

 

[HENDO]

Applied LS to the deadwood on this little Potentilla collected last year.

Fingers-crossed for some good back-budding on this one, to help turn it into a nice compact shohin. The branches on these are so brittle - it will likely be mostly/all clip and grow.

 

[We're all Mad Here...🎩]

Went on a beautiful rainy hike in Patapsco this morning and admired the nature we so desperately try to emulate. Definitely appreciate the style of the tortured tree, rather than the perfection look, more and more every day. Some amazing nebari, massive maple trunks (wife for size comparison), and my wife and I found our first wild lion's mane!

 

[Michigan Tree Murderer]

I got my Tiger bark ficus cuttings that @Carol 83 gave me outside for the summer.

This picture is from Oct 23 before I brought them inside for the winter.


In the same order as above.

I put them in a grow tent around the middle of Jan. They seemed to like it. Now I'm off to clean up some aerial roots

 

[Fidur]

Pics from my garden today....

 

[Esolin]

A freak early morning windstorm played havoc with my bench of small/top heavy pre bonsai. Most were in plastic pots and just took a harmless tumble, but this one needed an emergency repot.



This juniper's been in health recovery mode, and from the swirling mat of bottom roots, needed a repot anyway. Only pot I had available was twice as big, but that's probably for the best. It was dangerously top heavy in the old pot. I'd been thinking about thinning/reshaping this guy just a few days before. Glad I hadn't yet. I'll wait until it recovers.

 

[Japonicus]

Got to meet @NaoTK and Adair at the Bonsai Central show today. Super great people! I posted lots of pictures in the Bonsai Central thread Nao started. Didn't want to duplicate so many. But here is the Best Of Show Zelcova of Adair's.

View attachment 544504

Nice. I have a pic of that Zelkova on my camera.
Did the zelkova win any awards this time?

I have mites on a juniper so everything got sprayed today except JMs.

 

[Tycoss]

I guess it was yesterday, but we got to the wiring of the two spruce mentioned earlier.

 

[MaineChowder]

If I have to be honest, I’ve been doing this over several days (and I’m close but, not quite finished).
I’ve dug up and moved around 100 trees that I had fattening up in the ground. Not the best time for it but, my construction project was suddenly pushed (way) up and the trees had to go or be destroyed.
The varieties I’ve removed are Katsura, Paper Bark Birch, Beach Plum, Zelkova, Crab Apple, Flowering Cherry, Flowering Pear, Hardy Mimosa, Temple Juniper, White Spruce, Norway Spruce, Canadian Hemlock, Tamarack, Northern White Cedar, Atlantic White Cedar, Mugo Pine, Scots Pine, Japanese Black Pine, Japanese Red Pine, Pitch Pine, and Yew. It should be interesting to see which ones survive the shock and which ones wither. Here is some of them.View attachment 544398View attachment 544399
I don’t last as long on the end of a dummy-spoon as I used to but, just a few more Pitch Pine to go!

I am very interested in the beach plum. I have one in my yard and we have one at work in our community garden (I work for a nonprofit). I have always loved the trees and was just wondering if they would make a decent bonsai. Have you done one before? Any information you could offer I'd be very appreciative of.

 

[Carol 83]

Did the zelkova win any awards this time?

Best of show, thought I said that.

 

[CapeCodBonsai]

I have always loved the trees and was just wondering if they would make a decent bonsai. Have you done one before?

I still consider myself a rookie when it comes to bonsai.
I originally started growing trees and shrubs from seed during the winter of 2019 to re-landscape a piece of property that I had cleared. Prior to that, I didn’t even attempt to grow grass. I found that I enjoyed the process so, I’ve continued to buy tree seeds every winter.
While scanning the internet for the next species I wanted to try, I came across “bonsai seeds”. I knew there was no such thing as bonsai seeds but, it reminded me of the fascination I had with bonsai when I first read about them as a young child in the Encyclopedia Britannica.
The one hobby led to the other.
Cape Cod is a fairly challenging place to grow things without a greenhouse so, I thought it might be a good idea to grow some species that tend to survive here naturally. Pitch pine and beach plum were at the top of my list. The 3-4 beach plum I have are still in nursery pots with organic soil. They are only just now getting big enough to attempt to bonsai. I was going to try one this Spring but, my construction project got in the way of my plan.
That was a REALLY long winded way of saying, “No, I haven’t tried beach plum yet”