Weekend at Bjorn’s

[Hartinez]

Thanks! The one you’ve started looks good, progressing well. The drawing looks great! As for this one, the repot was rather aggressive, but this trees comes from a huge batch of hinoki’s that Bjorn brought to his nursery several years ago and they take a good bit of abuse. He and other students have been even more aggressive than I with very good results. See the image below, its from the same batch of hinoki and as you can see, his is in an even more shallow pot than mine and was started on it’s bonsai journey in 2020, whereas mine was started in 2019. So, I’m not sure if it’s the particular cultivar, or if you can be that aggressive on all hinoki. I’m still finding my way with them.

View attachment 391878

I had always been a bit terrified of Hinoki as ive read that they are so difficult to work with. Bjorn and bonsaiU have helped me realize that it’s a bit of a myth. I fully bare rooted mine and kept solid aftercare and it’s recovered quite well.

mine should be good in some years but several branches need some serious growth and development. The you’ve got is so nice and everything id look for in a Hinoki for sure. Looking forward to seeing it progress.

 

[mwar15]

I like the pot

 

[PeaceLoveBonsai]

Todd Schlafer has been creating some stunning blue spruces recently. I was inspired to get this spruce out and put in a session this weekend.

I’m trying to create a twin trunk, which means two apexes. Very challenging for me, but I’m happy with it.

What do ya’ll think? Feedback always encouraged.

Before:

After.

 

[BobbyLane]

its nice, i dont see a twin trunk there though. in the first image i dont like how the middle horizontal branch crosses the vertical branch, but if it doesnt bother you, leave it i guess. edit, its still somewhat visible in the after image but not as much. as it fills out might not notice

 

[PeaceLoveBonsai]

Thanks for the feedback Bobby!

Here’s a quick look at my attempted twin apex.


Although, like a joke, it loses its meaning when you have to explain it . Maybe it needs more work.

 

[BobbyLane]

Thanks for the feedback Bobby!

Here’s a quick look at my attempted twin apex.
View attachment 396016

Although, like a joke, it loses its meaning when you have to explain it . Maybe it needs more work.

i think if you want that second apex to be more prominent you might need to remove the right sided branch at the tip of the main apex and wire the second apex up into its place.
quicker for me to find a similar tree than a virt lol i guess you could leave the branch on the right of main trunk, but i would experiment with bringing the second apex up more

 

[PiñonJ]

Todd Schlafer has been creating some stunning blue spruces recently. I was inspired to get this spruce out and put in a session this weekend.

I’m trying to create a twin trunk, which means two apexes. Very challenging for me, but I’m happy with it.

What do ya’ll think? Feedback always encouraged.

Before:

View attachment 395998After. View attachment 395997

It’s a nice start. A couple of initial observations: It seems like you removed more needles than was necessary, which may slow its recovery. The tertiary branches should be organized into more defined pads and the tips of the branches shouldn’t continue to descend. They should come up slightly at the end. This tree has a nice strong trunk. If you want to highlight that, the plan for the future should be to compact the image with dense pads close to the trunk, and get it in a smaller container. I think the second apex will be a nice feature. More cohesive pads will make it more obvious. Nice tree!
Oh, one more thought - asymmetry adds interest. You might think about keeping more branch length on one side than the other (e.g. keep more length on the right, compact more on the left).

 

[PeaceLoveBonsai]

Trying to put some movement into this hinoki.
TBH, I’m not real happy with it, but I’m done ducking around with it.

It looks rad in person, but not so good in photos. If I keep it in my shop any longer I’ll knit pick it to death.

It’s also later in the season than I wanted for this work, so I better get it back out on the bench.

Before work:


And after:


I cut off the Jin and will begin the process of creating a proper apex.

Onward.

 

[Hartinez]

Trying to put some movement into this hinoki.
TBH, I’m not real happy with it, but I’m done ducking around with it.

It looks rad in person, but not so good in photos. If I keep it in my shop any longer I’ll knit pick it to death.

It’s also later in the season than I wanted for this work, so I better get it back out on the bench.

Before work:

View attachment 456640
And after:
View attachment 456641

I cut off the Jin and will begin the process of creating a proper apex.

Onward.

I like it. I think it just needs proper time to develop pads. And all we have is time!

 

[Vincent Tanner]

Finally, I worked on a ponderous pine. I recently took a trip out to Colorado. After hiking Pikes Peak, I have a new appreciation for these awesome trees.

Here’s the before.

View attachment 269852

And the after.

View attachment 269853
I wish I could say that this was 100% me, Bjorn definitely helped. But, not as much as he did a year ago! I have along way to go, I have to continually ask him to repeat himself b/c he talks so damn fast, but I am getting better, slowly but surely. And doing more and more on my own.

My weekends at Bjorn’s are absolutely the highlight of my year!

Really love that Ponderosa Pine! Awesome work!

I think @Smoke makes great points about the future design

 

[PeaceLoveBonsai]

Haven’t really touched this tree for several years. Such a slow grower.

Before work:




and after:


Might take this to Bjorn’s and get his thoughts.

All the strength is at the top, but I really like the bottom half.

We’ll see.

At least it’s still alive

 

[Potawatomi13]

Haven’t really touched this tree for several years. Such a slow grower.

Before work:


View attachment 457126

and after:

View attachment 457125
Might take this to Bjorn’s and get his thoughts.

All the strength is at the top, but I really like the bottom half.

We’ll see.

At least it’s still alive

Slow grower? Strange. All here need sprouts, buds removed every year because of crowding. Maybe not long growth but constant ramifying. Very very cool tree. Wonderful trunk and jins. Any idea who collected this?

 

[Dav4]

Haven’t really touched this tree for several years. Such a slow grower.

Before work:


View attachment 457126

and after:

View attachment 457125
Might take this to Bjorn’s and get his thoughts.

All the strength is at the top, but I really like the bottom half.

We’ll see.

At least it’s still alive

I see a great semi cascade there, but I'd want to really crank that left branch down and back toward the trunk and move the main trunk and apex to the left. I'm not surprised it's a slow grower with you... I lost a wonderful Pondie down in GA- it took 4-5 years after the move from MA but needle cast and overall lack of vigor caight up with it. If I could do it all over again, I'd get it into a much larger aggregate soil heavy with pumice and I'd be using fungicides year round. Good luck as that is fantastic material.

 

[bonsaiDerek]

I had always been a bit terrified of Hinoki as ive read that they are so difficult to work with. Bjorn and bonsaiU have helped me realize that it’s a bit of a myth. I fully bare rooted mine and kept solid aftercare and it’s recovered quite well.

mine should be good in some years but several branches need some serious growth and development. The you’ve got is so nice and everything id look for in a Hinoki for sure. Looking forward to seeing it progress.

what did you do for after care since you bare rooted it?
thanks

 

[Hartinez]

what did you do for after care since you bare rooted it?
thanks

B&B Hinoki

Nice, did you intentionally draw the face? Menacing Hinoki, lol Haha! Nope. That one nature created. That pic is unedited! But watch how your talking about it or it might come after you in your sleep…..

www.bonsainut.com

It should be relatively detailed in this thread.

 

[Stella]

This is such a nice thread to follow.
Well done on all 3 trees

 

[PeaceLoveBonsai]

This is such a nice thread to follow.
Well done on all 3 trees

Thanks!

 

[PeaceLoveBonsai]

Brought the hinoki into the shop today.

Lots of work to be done with this one.

 

[Shogun610]

Brought the hinoki into the shop today.

Lots of work to be done with this one.

View attachment 500744

There’s just something about a ramrod straight Hinoki..

 

[PeaceLoveBonsai]

Fall cleanup in the books.

Looking forward to a repot (and change to the front) next spring.