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Thanks all! That's really useful information. I think you've hit the nail on the head regarding my nebari development mistakes on this pine. On my other bonsai, mostly deciduous, I've been very fastidious with sorting the roots out before any serious growth goes on, and I'm pretty happy with...

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Hi all, I was hoping to get a little advice about a Mugo pine that I'm working on. It's my oldest (living) pine which I bought as a bit of a practice piece for learning about them, and after a bit of a steep learning curve over the last 6-7 years or so I feel like I've improved my knowledge...

I'm hoping that too. The larvae don't have the characteristic look of beetle larvae, like a head section and leg-like structures, and I'm not aware of fly larvae that actively eat into healthy wood either. What could I check for to see whether it's a fungal issue? If 0soyoung is correct in...

Great! Thanks for your reply. I think that sounds like a good plan. I was reluctant to cut the tree until I knew which bits were dead, but now the bark is peeling it's quite easy to identify the dead bits and make sure I don't stress the remainder of the tree. Hopefully this little maple will...

...And this is the back, where the die back spread right down to the roots. Interestingly, the roots are pretty solid below this, with no sign of rot going down into the soil. It looks pretty ugly, but maybe it can be made into something interesting.

So, here's a pic of the base of the tree, with the new growth that broke out over the summer. The branches are dead above this. I really like the nebari here, and hopefully I can introduce some interesting movement by doing something with these new shoots.

Hi all, I've got a Japanese maple which I've been growing from a small sapling over the last 10 years or so, and which suddenly died back quite drastically over the course of the summer. I had attributed this die back initially to the fact that I moved it into a nice protected corner of the...

OK. Here are some snaps of the buds. First is a picture of a strong shoot, where the bud has died. The needles look ok, but they pull out fairly easily. And second is a weaker shoot where the bud is still green. The needles are much more firmly attached to the branch here...

Oh dear! I didn't think it looked THAT bad! Oh well. You live and you learn. I'll get some close-up snaps of the areas that are struggling and the areas that look a little more healthy and see what people think. I was hoping that there was enough root system for at least some of the branches...

Thanks guys. The soil is a free draining soil that I use on most other trees, with extra bark and sand/gravel included, all sat on a inch deep layer of coarse bark and pebbles. I shouldn't think this is the cause of the problem, but possibly. And yes, I am only misting when it has the...

Hi all! I've not been on this site for a long time, but I've not abandoned the bonsai. I'm posting as I have a question regarding one of my pines. I've not had a lot of success with pines, so generally I stick to deciduous plants. However, I did buy an old pine on eBay, and have previously...

Oh! That's good to hear! They're beginning to look a bit too leggy, but I might be able to make them look quite good. I agree that they probably won't make great bonsai, but they are very interesting trees. One of the ones I've been continuously pruning back looks very cool at the moment...

Hi! I have a number of brachychiton plants that I've grown over the years from seed I got in Spain. The very first two have grown very tall, almost 5ft at the moment, but only have foliage at the very top. The base of the trunk has become very thick and bulbous, and excellent bonsai material...

Wow! Great! I don't feel so bad about paying as much as I did for it now considering that it's a Red Pine and not a Scots Pine! Excellent! Thanks for your help! I guess I can just use the same knowledge with Scots Pines as with my akamatsu? Also, I've dug out some lawn fertiliser, which...

Hi! I've attached close-ups of the bud as requested. I do hope it's not an akamatsu on account of the fact that I've bought a load of books on Scots pines. I know they're both 2 needle pines but am I right in thinking that a red pine won't back bud so nicely as a Scots pine could?

OK, I dug out my camera cable, and got a few pics to upload. So, the first one is the whole plant. You can see what I meant about it being 'bushy'. There's no distinct leader, it's just grown into a big cloud. A close up of the trunk shows the bark, which I quite like. The trunk is thick...

Hi there! I have a nice little Scots Pine that I bought from a vendor on eBay about 6 or 7 years ago. I probably paid far too much for it, and I'd only been doing bonsai for about 3 or 4 years before that on self-set Silver Birches and Cotoneaster in my garden. I repotted the pine, and left it...