Here is a summary of one year of work on a nursery potentilla. I love these trees for shohin because decent stuff can (rarely) be found in nurseries and they develop so damn fast, even with my not-so-long growing season. Working on tiny trees like this is a pain though...
Hopefully this post generates some discussion, my posts usually just wither away and die...
As purchased late 2007... didn't do any work that year, too late in season. Note the nice flowers. Pfftt... that'll be the last time I see those I bet.

Hard pruning spring 2008

After seeing a good response to the pruning, I did the first rough carving. This was my first real 'carving' project in bonsai, but potentilla are kind of cheating because you just tear away at the branches and get a very nice texture. Very easy to carve, did it almost all with pliers. No chisels or anything.
View 1
View 2 with pen for scale

It didn't skip a beat, here it is about 2 months later... I let it grow too wild, which was a mistake. It just made more work for me.
Note the thickening and definition of the live veins which happened incredibly quickly.

Hopefully this post generates some discussion, my posts usually just wither away and die...
As purchased late 2007... didn't do any work that year, too late in season. Note the nice flowers. Pfftt... that'll be the last time I see those I bet.

Hard pruning spring 2008

After seeing a good response to the pruning, I did the first rough carving. This was my first real 'carving' project in bonsai, but potentilla are kind of cheating because you just tear away at the branches and get a very nice texture. Very easy to carve, did it almost all with pliers. No chisels or anything.
View 1

View 2 with pen for scale

It didn't skip a beat, here it is about 2 months later... I let it grow too wild, which was a mistake. It just made more work for me.
Note the thickening and definition of the live veins which happened incredibly quickly.

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