Recent content by Brian Van Fleet

Scale, pick them off, dab the areas with rubbing alcohol.

Very nice! The oribe tofu is special. Haven’t seen one of his with etched sides like yours, that is cool!

They’re for making ductile iron, a work project unrelated to bonsai, but a shot I snapped yesterday.

Undoubtedly a bucket list item…kudos. Steel punchings for photo tax.

JBP, becoming a favorite…

Getting this one ready to show as well. It’s looking pretty good, and the first flower bud just opened today, so hopefully it will be blooming next week.

And a year later, prepping it for the Spring show just for fun…haven’t decided if I’m going to shorten the 4 candles popping up in the top or not. It is the spring show, and this is what pines look like in the spring. Probably why Kokufu-ten is in February.

Cleaning it up for the spring show. It’s not in stellar shape, but it looks pretty good.

Show-prep shot. Hope it makes it another 11 days. The cool weather should help.

Well. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out. I always completely enclose the moss for my layers, and they usually need wringing out more than watering. The moss ball in the photo below is bigger than a softball. https://nebaribonsai.wordpress.com/2025/04/02/seigen-japanese-maple-air-layer/

That is a small amount of sphagnum moss…probably needs a bigger bag of moss.

Looking good and coming right along. They do develop pretty quickly in pots, but mine has some dieback of twiggy branches over the winter. I think I’ll be doing some “POCD” after the spring show and see if more interior light exposure helps. Unfortunate about that wire scar across the front...

I probably wouldn’t bother to remove the flowers.

Looks like mycorrhiza to me.

Here is a shot from last week after trimming it back. Flower buds are close to opening.