I was going to say something cheeky about how technically the middle of summer this year is Aug 7th (or Aug 1st if you want to be traditional). But I don’t want to come across as an a-hat. Because I’m not. I promise. I have no bonsai friends yet and am learning as I go. Any and all advice is welcome and super appreciated. Was it too late to chop? I couldn’t find much information on these particular species so I went by the “in the heart of the growing season” guideline and interperated that to mean before the summer mid point.
Many will agree with you that the time is still good for large chops and it is of course species dependent. Being an old retired nurseryman, my cut of day has always been July 4th. This was learned from generations before me and by personal experience to support the supposition. Experience has also taught me to cheat a little on this from time to time according to species, environment and severity of pruning.
I have no idea what you're talking about
Overzealous hacking perhaps?I have no idea what you're talking about
Do you think I should of taken more, or less away on the Japanese Holly? I feel good about the Ninebark (I think). I didn’t want to cut the limbs back too short on that because from the little information I could find, they can get leggy and I think I was lucky to find one that wasn’t. There are some branches I’m kicking myself now for taking off on the Holly, but my eye saw that taper and I got over zealous trying to expose it.
As to the physiological response from the plant, you are probably ok unless you have a particularly harsh winter in which case you can expect dieback on the new growth that will be forthcoming.
Yes. Patience is the hardest thing for me. Which low key is kind of why I wanted to get some cheap nursery stock to quell my antsy fingers. All of my other trees are happy, healthy, and shouldn’t have to be touched again for a while. Minus these new nursery plants, the health of my trees always comes first in my mind. I’m new to this, but my trees bring me so much inner joy and peace. I honestly wasn’t expecting to love it as much as I do. I love advice. Crave it. I’m a business intelligence analyst by day, I find great pleasure in being bombarded by information and processing potential outcomes. But unfortunately I don’t have any bonsai friends to talk to, and my family and friends are pretty tired of me ranting on about my plants haha. That’s why I joined this site, to learn even more, and maybe hopefully find some friends that I can geek out to about our trees.
Yeah, the jaggedness is totally on me. I had my SO sharpen the pruners before hand, but I’m 120lbs soaking wet. It’s hard for me to get clean cuts with manual tools on some larger branches. They look very parallel in that photo, but they form kind of a spiral pattern and I suppose that is what I was kind of going for? Do you think there’s any chance for it to turn out decent looking?
Sarcasm, penumbra has seen plenty of my threads regarding chopping the crap out of my maple and my Azalea
