Recent content by luvinthemountains

This is where I would go. Remove everything else, cut just above the first node, and let the upper bud extend. If you do it after the tree has leafed out and hardened off (June-ish?) then the growth from that bud will be restrained. Later in the year, you wire some movement into that and then...

The root spread on the curvy one is to die for!

It will take a lot of energy to grow a new shoot like that, and to close what will be a good sized wound after you chop. My 2 cents is that it would be better to do that growing/healing with a full tank of gas, after having had the chance to grow it out for a while.

My observations have not been very scientific - I combined a couple of experiences that could have been coincidental with anecdotes that I read online, including here. One thought, though, if you are using a weak dilution of the MG (something like 1/2 or 1/4 of recommended for containers), that...

Hello, Figgie! First off, congratulations on saving the tree! Black scale can be mean AF and I hate them with a passion. No, do not prune this tree. That thing should get to grow into a big bushy shrub before you touch it with pruners. Trim it now and it will probably struggle along for...

Not sure how other people are fertilizing BRT, but I skip my BRT any time I am fertilizing my bonsai with chemical fertilizer. Once, after I hit it with chemical fert, it had a hissy fit and dropped all its leaves. But I had to do it again before I caught on (slow learner). Ever since then, the...

Intriguing! Are the screens shorter than the frame, so you can "shake" them?

You could be right and it might be too late, but I have a Korean hornbeam with that same problem that I waited to address, and still had some luck with flat-cutting under the root and covering with soil.

C&T, years ago, used to have a relationship with the club due to a couple of past club presidents working there. Those individuals did a lot of work to establish the bonsai department, but after they left the quality went down and the prices went up. The relationship with the club also stalled...

Hello! I suggest looking for nurseries near you and checking them out. You would do yourself a favor by reading up first on how to select good nursery stock. Early on, I wasted a lot of time and money on truly terrible material. Some ideas for nurseries to look at would be Glover Nursery and...

I am not going to defend or condemn the response, but offer my thought on the source of the disagreement. I believe that, when @johnl445 mentioned the BIN price, @Gabler understood the thrust of the question to be whether it would be a good buy. But the intent behind stating the price, I think...

This is turning out very nice. I hope it responds by sprouting by that branch that died.

Oh, for sure. My statement was a little vague! I just meant I would rotate them so that I would get to see them all. Even in my imaginary world where I get to put something like that in the living room, my wife still would not allow enough cabinets to hold all my ficus! 😄

You might have fewer watts going into your tent than I do (~400W-500W per 2x4x6 tent). Without my thermostat-controlled exhaust fans my trees would literally be toast. Not everybody will need it - like you said, people need to find what works for them. The one thing I think is essential in an...

Definitely not necessary. I grew ficus bonsai in my house, unenclosed, for several years and it was fine. Like you said, they just did not thrive. Here are my reasons for growing in a tent: Light - the high-intensity LEDs that I grow my tropicals under are very bright and harsh on the eyes...