Back Stateside

[justBonsai]

Hello nutters. I haven't been very active here as I've spent the last 2 years apprenticing in Japan. I do like this forum and it's members quite a lot and is in part where I got started in bonsai.

Coincidentally I flew out of Japan before the big escalation with the virus outbreak. It's good to be home but it seems things are getting bad stateside. With the whole social isolation thing, being unemployed (I've been job hunting and have finally conceded that this month is fucked), and also having very few private gigs at the moment I've returned to the forums to kill some time.

I've been fairly transparent about my apprenticeship experience and process and have posted a lot on my blog, facebook, and instagram. All in all I would say my 2 years were quite productive and I significantly expanded and grew my skillset in many areas. There is still a lot to learn and I'm always seeking to improve my knowledge as an ongoing process. Here is my work portfolio for my styling work, but I've also done a lot of repotting, deciduous refinement/developmental work, pine techniques, etc:

Work

Here are various projects I’ve undertaken over the years. Links to full progressions can be found in the comments. I like to show the progression of my skill, so I’ve ordered these from…

bontsai.com

I've been trying to rebuild my collection as I don't have many trees at the moment. Anyhow, with not much to do I'll probably start posting around the nuthouse. Here's one of my trees I didn't sell off and left with my parents. It's a root over rock chinese elm I grew from a seedling. About 6 years from seedling to what you see now. Not the same seedling photographed but started with that. Still building the core primary and secondary structure, but after that sets its all refinement and fun with the tertiary and finer branching.

 

[bonhe]

Welcome back to the States and the forum , bluemeon !
Yeah, it is suck to get an employment at this time. You may get $ 1200 from the government
Take care of yourself and be safe.
Thụ Thoại

 

[justBonsai]

Welcome back to the States and the forum , bluemeon !
Yeah, it is suck to get an employment at this time. You may get $ 1200 from the government
Take care of yourself and be safe.
Thụ Thoại

Good to be back! Things are definitely a bit crazy right now.

 

[justBonsai]

Maybe not right now cause how things are, but anyone relatively local to me I accept trees as payment for private work

Really want to get my own collection going again haha

 

[CasAH]

Welcome home. Hope you are successful in finding a job.

Illinois just went shelter in place today. Not a fun time to be looking for a job.

Good luck in your future Bonsai adventures.

 

[justBonsai]

Welcome home. Hope you are successful in finding a job.

Illinois just went shelter in place today. Not a fun time to be looking for a job.

Good luck in your future Bonsai adventures.

Good to be back! Absolutely terrible time to look for a job and to do professional bonsai work . Will be hunkering down with the folks for awhile.

 

[sorce]

I love how that pattern in the box works with the rock placement. Beautiful. Great tree to have too!

Glad you're safe and home.

I can't see a Forest Preserve sign or drive down 55 without thinking of that picture of you and @CasAH, still mad I missed ya.

I cherish this Bon-Sai pot, so simple but I can stare at it forever, and it feels soooo good!

Tsaime for a YouTube Channel Bro!

Reckon you could drum up some online instructional work.
It's what you do so do it.

I was watching this Wu-Tang saga show on Hulu....young Rza is in the park playing chess with an old man, he tells Rza, "seems like you're doing someone else's work out here, and not your own", of selling drugs and not making music.

Do your work.

Sorce

 

[JudyB]

That is a great angle on that ROR. We see lots of glacial erratics around here, with that very angle and ROR trees on them. Glad you are home, and stay safe and hopeful!

 

[bonhe]

Good to be back! Things are definitely a bit crazy right now.

Don’t worry so much! Things will be better!
Thụ Thoại

 

[rollwithak]

Hello nutters. I haven't been very active here as I've spent the last 2 years apprenticing in Japan. I do like this forum and it's members quite a lot and is in part where I got started in bonsai.

Coincidentally I flew out of Japan before the big escalation with the virus outbreak. It's good to be home but it seems things are getting bad stateside. With the whole social isolation thing, being unemployed (I've been job hunting and have finally conceded that this month is fucked), and also having very few private gigs at the moment I've returned to the forums to kill some time.

I've been fairly transparent about my apprenticeship experience and process and have posted a lot on my blog, facebook, and instagram. All in all I would say my 2 years were quite productive and I significantly expanded and grew my skillset in many areas. There is still a lot to learn and I'm always seeking to improve my knowledge as an ongoing process. Here is my work portfolio for my styling work, but I've also done a lot of repotting, deciduous refinement/developmental work, pine techniques, etc:

Work

Here are various projects I’ve undertaken over the years. Links to full progressions can be found in the comments. I like to show the progression of my skill, so I’ve ordered these from…

bontsai.com

I've been trying to rebuild my collection as I don't have many trees at the moment. Anyhow, with not much to do I'll probably start posting around the nuthouse. Here's one of my trees I didn't sell off and left with my parents. It's a root over rock chinese elm I grew from a seedling. About 6 years from seedling to what you see now. Not the same seedling photographed but started with that. Still building the core primary and secondary structure, but after that sets its all refinement and fun with the tertiary and finer branching.

View attachment 289987

View attachment 289988

I have a ton of chinese elms that have sprouted in my backyard. Starting to dig them up and get them in their own pots. Have any advise on how I should approach the next few years with them? Should I just let them grow or is there a good point to start shaping and messing with them? I’ll post some pics later.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Things are definitely a bit crazy right now.

Wins the award for "Understatement of the Year 2020!"

Welcome home!

 

[justBonsai]

I have a ton of chinese elms that have sprouted in my backyard. Starting to dig them up and get them in their own pots. Have any advise on how I should approach the next few years with them? Should I just let them grow or is there a good point to start shaping and messing with them? I’ll post some pics later.

Chinese elm is fairly fast to develop. I like to use a combination of pot growing and ground growing for different cycles of sacrifice running and branch development. If your intention is to create a shohin I do not like exclusively using ground growing--it produces internode sizes that are too coarse and blocky movement/taper. Then again chinese elms are quite easy to produce back budding so if you ever get unusable branching you can cut them off and regrow it.

I would dig them up and get it in their own pots. You should always be working with a rough plan in mind. For the first few years establish basic movement and establish your trunk line. Do not worry about branches at this stage but it is nice if you have buds or small branches where you intend to build them in the future, it'll save you some time. After you set this allow your sacrifice branches to run. Since your key structure and nodes are already set, no matter how vigorous and strong your sacrifice branch gets you will still have finer features to cut back and build from in the future. To accelerate the growth, you can allow the roots to run freely in the ground or in another container.

Also on another note, bigger pot =/= bigger tree (sometimes). I do not like overpotting young trees. I like allowing their roots to fill that container first before slipping or repotting into a larger pot. Large pots will retain a lot of water that a young tree will not be able to use up. If the roots are perpetually wet, the growth will actually be slower despite using a larger container. So when you pot up your seedlings use an appropriately sized container relative to the amount of roots it has. After they establish themselves and fill most of the pot (for trees in development don't wait until it becomes root bound) you can transition to a larger container if necessary.

Ground growing is different because the water table is much lower and there is a significantly greater surface area to allow excess water to dissipate or taken up by other plants.

I'll find old pictures of that tree if I can later but the rough time table is as follows:

Year 0 - 2: seedling in ground
Year 2: Potted up in pumice, fertilized regularly
Year 3: Decided to do ROR and attached to rock and planted in ground
Year 4: After freely growing unrestricted in the ground for 1 year, I dug it out and put it back in a pot. I did preliminary wiring and structural work but still kept the wire holds on the roots
Year 5: I was out of country at this time and my visit did not align with the window of work
Year 6: Repotted, removed the remaining wire holds on the roots and did some more structural work seen in this post.

The tree has since grown a lot and I have already done another stage of cut back and wiring. It'll probably be "done" as far as fine ramification within 2, maybe 3 seasons. Anyhow these trees can be grown very fast from seedling, especially a shohin tree.

 

[rollwithak]

Chinese elm is fairly fast to develop. I like to use a combination of pot growing and ground growing for different cycles of sacrifice running and branch development. If your intention is to create a shohin I do not like exclusively using ground growing--it produces internode sizes that are too coarse and blocky movement/taper. Then again chinese elms are quite easy to produce back budding so if you ever get unusable branching you can cut them off and regrow it.

I would dig them up and get it in their own pots. You should always be working with a rough plan in mind. For the first few years establish basic movement and establish your trunk line. Do not worry about branches at this stage but it is nice if you have buds or small branches where you intend to build them in the future, it'll save you some time. After you set this allow your sacrifice branches to run. Since your key structure and nodes are already set, no matter how vigorous and strong your sacrifice branch gets you will still have finer features to cut back and build from in the future. To accelerate the growth, you can allow the roots to run freely in the ground or in another container.

Also on another note, bigger pot =/= bigger tree (sometimes). I do not like overpotting young trees. I like allowing their roots to fill that container first before slipping or repotting into a larger pot. Large pots will retain a lot of water that a young tree will not be able to use up. If the roots are perpetually wet, the growth will actually be slower despite using a larger container. So when you pot up your seedlings use an appropriately sized container relative to the amount of roots it has. After they establish themselves and fill most of the pot (for trees in development don't wait until it becomes root bound) you can transition to a larger container if necessary.

Ground growing is different because the water table is much lower and there is a significantly greater surface area to allow excess water to dissipate or taken up by other plants.

I'll find old pictures of that tree if I can later but the rough time table is as follows:

Year 0 - 2: seedling in ground
Year 2: Potted up in pumice, fertilized regularly
Year 3: Decided to do ROR and attached to rock and planted in ground
Year 4: After freely growing unrestricted in the ground for 1 year, I dug it out and put it back in a pot. I did preliminary wiring and structural work but still kept the wire holds on the roots
Year 5: I was out of country at this time and my visit did not align with the window of work
Year 6: Repotted, removed the remaining wire holds on the roots and did some more structural work seen in this post.

The tree has since grown a lot and I have already done another stage of cut back and wiring. It'll probably be "done" as far as fine ramification within 2, maybe 3 seasons. Anyhow these trees can be grown very fast from seedling, especially a shohin tree.

Awesome advice. Thank you sincerely, for taking the time.